


Maelstrom

by hollycomb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:14:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a family holiday, tensions between Harry and Teddy come to a head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maelstrom

  
Harry had never been in a more beautiful place and simultaneously in a worse mood. He'd thought that a family vacation to the Greek Islands would alleviate some of the stress they had all suffered during the children's school year, with James nearly flunking out and Albus the target of bullies. Lily was in her third year and already "seriously" dating a Ravenclaw whom Harry greatly disapproved of. Meanwhile, things had been hectic at work and he and Ginny weren't exactly making progress with their Marriage Healer. Harry had diagnosed the problem as a lack of the Weasley family's cheerful exuberance in the more sombre Potter household and had invited his brother-in-law's family to join them for a full month in the glorious Mediterranean sunshine. He had brought Teddy Lupin along, too, having long grown used to the boy's sensitivity about being "left out" of Potter family functions. Teddy was twenty-five years old and hardly a boy anymore, but his emotional maturity was at an all-time low.   
  
"This place is crawling with Muggles," Teddy said disdainfully as he and Harry made their way down the stony beach toward the encampment of Auto-Adjusting Umbrellas and Levitating Sun-Bathing Cushions that had been surrounded by a Disillusionment Charm to protect the family from the prying eyes of Muggles. Harry squinted at the highly accessorised scene ahead of them: Hermione was frantically reapplying Immunity Balm to her children's pale skin and Lily was fighting with Ginny about how high her Levitating Cushion should be allowed to float. He felt weary and reluctant to rejoin them, though Teddy's company had hardly been a respite. Harry had been instructed by Hermione to go and retrieve Teddy from the vacation rental so that he would get "some exposure to the real world." Teddy had slept for most of the family's first two days on Kokari.   
  
"Look at them," Harry said. He stopped walking, and Teddy did, too, frowning at the spectacle of the Weasley and Potter families in the distance. "Don't you envy the Muggles a bit, sometimes? They don't have to keep up with all of these charms and magical artefacts and potions that enhance every experience. Sure, they're uncomfortable lying on the rocks, but they get to just _lie there_. Do you know what I mean?"   
  
"No." Teddy scowled. "You're mad. The Muggles all look so pathetically unhappy, they make me depressed."   
  
"Oh, is that what it is? The proximity of Muggles is what's making you so surly?"   
  
Teddy gave Harry an irritated look. "If you didn't want me along, I don't know why you bothered to invite me. It isn't as if I don't have my own life now."   
  
Actually, that was exactly the case, and they both knew it. Teddy stalked off muttering to himself and Harry sighed. Teddy had been such a sweet, helpful child, but ever since his fourth year at Hogwarts, his life had been one tumultuous disaster after another. He was always having a drama with a girl or a fight with his poor old gran, whom Harry had been surprised to see Teddy mourn so deeply when she died during his sixth year, as he hadn't thought Teddy had any remaining tender feelings as a teenager. Harry did recall occasionally treating the people who cared about him terribly during his middling teenage years, but as soon as Teddy hit adolescence he was disrespectful and dismissive of Andromeda and everyone else who tried to help him right -  
  
his freewheeling life, and this didn't end when he entered young adulthood. He barely managed to squeak through graduating from Hogwarts and began an infamous affair with Ron's niece Victoire shortly thereafter. If ever there was an ill-advised combination of lovers it was Teddy and Victoire: a brooding, self-centred Englishman and a vain, melodramatic Frenchwoman. Their rows were legendary, and the whole thing ended in a painstakingly staged suicide attempt by Victoire when Teddy left her for an old friend from school, Phillip Fink. Thus began Teddy's loud and tear-strewn coming out process.   
  
"Harry, tell her to come down before she hurts herself," Ginny said when Harry entered the boundaries of the disillusionment charm. He looked up to see his youngest child floating a good twenty metres off the ground on her Levitating Cushion and peering down over the edge at him pleadingly.   
  
"It's not like I haven't been higher on a broom!" Lily shouted.   
  
"Yes, dear, but there's no threat of falling asleep and rolling over the edge on a broom," Ginny said tightly. Harry hated the way her jaw tightened and her temples seemed to pulse when she was cross with the children. He was overcome by a feeling of guilt, as if he had turned her into something less than she'd been fated to become. He wasn't the only one who felt that way, lately; his mother-in-law wasn't as charmed by him as she had once been, probably because she'd been hearing about Harry's every demerit on a regular basis. Ginny stared at Harry expectantly.   
  
"Well?" she snapped.   
  
"She'll be alright," Harry said.   
  
"That's right," Ron piped up suddenly, sprawled out on his own cushion with a _Daily Prophet_ that was wilting in the heat spread over his face. "If she rolls off, Harry will catch her like a snitch."   
  
"Honestly," Hermione said, sitting down beside her husband. Harry's usual envy for the way they were able to chide each other gently and rip into each other completely and still seem to remain so close flared up. He and Ginny had been so afraid to raise their voices to each other for so long, as if theirs was a mythic, sacred love that should face no real obstacles after everything else they had been through, and by the time they finally began to have the regular married-people rows the phenomenon was far more jarring than it should have been.   
  
"Fine." Ginny sat down heavily. "What do I know, I'm only her mother."   
  
Hermione gave Harry a sympathetic look that infuriated him. He walked down to the water's edge and watched Hugo and James dunking each other, laughing and struggling for dominance. -  
  
Albus was sitting forlornly at the water's edge, and Harry watched Teddy walk over to sit beside him.   
  
"What's wrong?" Teddy asked. Harry bent down and pretended to examine a particularly interesting pebble while he listened.   
  
"Nothing," Albus said. He was fifteen years old and still had few friends at school; Harry was more worried about Albus than James, who was allergic to class work and revision but who was always surrounded by loads of boasting mates.   
  
"Don't lie," Teddy said. "You look especially gray this afternoon."   
  
"Thanks."   
  
"Has your brother been teasing you?"   
  
Albus shrugged, which was as good as a confirmation. He was such a sensitive boy and would never make it in the world unless he changed; Harry's heart broke just at the sight of him.   
  
"Want me to hex him?" Teddy asked.   
  
"No," Albus said. "Your spell work is crap and you'd probably end up burning half the town down if you tried."   
  
To Harry's surprise, Teddy only laughed and elbowed Albus in mock annoyance. Albus smirked and looked down at his lap. Harry hadn't realised they were friendly at all. When Teddy was younger he and Harry's children had been rather close, but ever since Teddy's teenage gloom had descended he typically just grunted in irritation if Harry's boys tried to follow him about like embarrassing younger brothers.   
  
Later, when the group had sent their cavalcade of things back to the rental, Harry trudged along with his children rather than Apparating directly into the shower in the rental's master bedroom. Teddy was walking, too, staring at a large head of storm clouds that was blowing in from out over the ocean.   
  
"Looks like bad weather is coming," Harry said, catching up to Teddy. Behind him Rose and Lily were speaking with shrieking excitement about a cute Muggle boy whom the group had passed. Harry tried to tune it out; his daughter's premature enthusiasm for the opposite sex had always given him heartburn.   
  
"Well, we can fuck with a lot of things, wizards, but not the weather," Teddy said, and Harry smiled. After what he had witnessed between Teddy and Albus, he was willing to not take Teddy's brooding sentiments as personal insults.   
  
"Thanks for speaking to Albus earlier," Harry said.   
  
"I didn't do it for you," Teddy said with a scowl, and he Apparated away. Harry stood shocked for a moment, until Ginny caught up with him.   
  
"Where's he off to?" she asked.   
  
"No telling," Harry said, trying to stamp down the angry tone in his voice. It had been this way since Teddy's fourth year. The moment Harry was willing to give Teddy the benefit of the doubt, Teddy threw it back in his face. Harry had no idea why; he'd been nothing but a loving godfather to the boy, though admittedly, with his career as a private consultant to the world's magical governments and his own three children, he hadn't exactly had time to dote on Teddy. But Harry himself had never begrudged his own godfather's necessarily slight presence in his life, even when Sirius was lost to him so early. Thinking of him, his mood dipped even further. He still missed Sirius, and Teddy's father, too.   
  
"Maybe we shouldn't have brought him," Harry said to Ginny, wondering if Teddy would even return to the rental later for dinner.   
  
"No, this is exactly what he needs," Ginny said. "To be reminded what a real family is like."   
  
"You sound as if that will only make him glad he hasn't got one."   
  
Ginny said nothing, and for the second time that afternoon Harry's conversation ended when his companion Apparated away.   
  
*   
  
Dinner that night was the usual boisterous affair, but instead of lifting Harry's spirits as it usually did, he felt irritable and wished he could tell everyone to quiet the hell down. He sat at the head of the table with Ginny and Albus to his left and right, both sullen and only picking at their food. In the middle of the table there was riotous laughter as Ron, drunk as usual, tried to demonstrate to Hugo how best to make milk come out of James' nose as he laughed hysterically. Rose and Lily were red-faced with hilarity and even Hermione was chuckling, her hand over her mouth. Teddy was down at the other end beside her, sulking with his shoulders hunched.   
  
"What do you say we go for a sail tomorrow?" Harry asked Albus. Albus looked to the windows, which were being blasted with rain.   
  
"Have you got a death wish?" he asked, and Harry frowned. He was getting rather tired of everyone's sarcasm.   
  
"The weather might improve," Harry said. "And if not, there are those caves on the other side of the island --"   
  
"I hate caves," Albus said, and Harry bit back a sardonic laugh, because it seemed such a ridiculous thing: to hate _caves_? Why? Who even thought of them enough to hate them? He looked down at his plate with a grunt.   
  
"Harry, leave him alone," Ginny said, as if Harry's suggestions about how they might spend the day together were torturing poor, helpless Albus. Ginny had always been insanely protective of their younger son; Harry blamed her entirely for Albus' softness and the resultant problems at school, though he would never say so.   
  
"I'm through," Harry said roughly, rising from the table, and for some reason the cheer completely ceased, as if everyone had been listening to him all along. The mirthful Weasleys stared as Harry sent his plate to the kitchen sink.   
  
"Delicious as always, Hermione," Harry said, because he knew his wife hated it when he complimented Hermione's awful cooking out of politeness. He almost felt he should bow before walking out of the room, but he managed to resist the urge.   
  
"Where's dad going?" he heard Lily ask as he walked down the stairs to the third floor, where he and Ginny had been sleeping in the house's largest bedroom. He hurried away before he had to hear his wife's response.   
  
*   
  
Harry couldn't sleep that night. He lay on his back staring at the canopy that floated over the giant four poster bed and listened to his wife's quiet breathing. Lately he'd been having a hard time remembering what it had felt like to fall in love with Ginny. He'd been so preoccupied with everything else -- the War, Voldemort, even Draco Malfoy -- that Ginny had seemed to just suddenly appear on the horizon as a welcome escape, and then when the War ended, there she was again, waiting faithfully. Harry had been propositioned by many women over the years and all over the world, but he had never had a real desire to cheat on his wife, though his sexual disinterest in her was ruining their marriage all the same. _Some people just don't like sex that much_ , he'd said to Ron when Hermione forced the poor bloke to take Harry out and discuss the matter over pints at the Three Broomsticks. Ron had boggled at Harry as if he'd just burst into flames and asked him if he was sure he was doing it right.   
  
He got out of bed and walked out onto the large balcony that was attached to the bedroom. The air outside was cooler than it had been all summer; it was still raining, but just a bit. Harry wished he had a brandy and considered summoning one, but Ron had probably finished what was left of the house's supply after dinner, and Harry's magic had been so out of whack and unpredictable for the past year or so that he was afraid, in the absence of drinkable brandy, a Muggle girl named Brandy might come sailing into his grip. -  
  
He tried to allow this mental image to stir up the kind of fantasy that he'd wanked to as a younger man, but the thought only embarrassed him. His Marriage Healer told him that his dying sex drive and his inability to trust his spell work were linked. Harry could only imagine this story being leaked to the press: _The Great Harry Potter: Losing His Magic Because He Can't Get It Up!_   
  
The truth was, Harry didn't like trying to solve his own problems. He much preferred confronting the problems of other people, and even then only if those problems involved physical danger rather than this emotional sort. He was rubbish with comforting Albus when he was persecuted, and the situation with Ginny was grave. When they'd come back from the beach she'd looked at him as if she wanted to hex him into the next country just because he asked her if she knew where he'd put his red shirt.   
  
The door on the balcony below the third floor slid open and shut beneath him, and Harry was immediately on edge, listening carefully. Lily and Rose were sleeping on that floor; what if some Muggle prat they'd flirted with during the day had followed them home? Not wanting to startle his daughter and niece if he was wrong, he went back into the bedroom and hurriedly put on his Invisibility Cloak before Apparating down to the lower porch.   
  
When he arrived he realised that whoever had sneaked onto the porch was certainly not a Muggle: a Concealing Charm had been poorly cast and was shimmering around the right side of the porch, over the sofa that looked out at the ocean. Through the cracks in the bubble of secrecy Harry could see a man sitting on the couch, his legs spread wide and his hand down the front of his pants. He couldn't see the man's face; his head was tipped back onto the couch cushions and there was some sort of cloth covering his face. Harry was set to tear off the Cloak and perform an enthusiastic _Crucio_ on the pervert who had broken in his family's vacation home when he recognised the long, ripped trousers that Teddy had been wearing since they arrived in Greece. He had to bite his tongue hard to keep from gasping in shock.   
  
As he stood there allowing his hammering heart to wind down and accept that his daughter wasn't in danger by some sexual predator, he realised that there was really no reason to be shocked: Teddy was sharing a room with James, so he would want privacy for a wank. Perhaps he was aware of the fact that his Concealing Charms weren't reliably functional. Harry was almost jealous of Teddy as he prepared to Apparate away; he so missed the days at Hogwarts when he would cast a Silencing Charm around his bed and have a wank that he'd been dying for all day, back when he used to get half-hard just from sitting on a broomstick. He found himself standing in place and staring at Teddy enviously as Teddy pushed his pants down with impatient need and took his cock in his hand. It was dark on the balcony, but in the glare from a Muggle street lamp outside Harry could see the shine of the precome on Teddy's cock as he rolled his fist up and down, going slow. Harry flushed with embarrassment and told himself to leave, but then Teddy's bare feet inched further apart on the floor, and he sank down deeper into the cushions of the sofa as he spread his legs wider, sighing with deep contentment. For the first time in months, Harry's cock twitched to life. By the time Teddy reached down to rub his balls with one hand as he continued to pump his cock with the other, Harry began to get hard. Teddy's pathetic little moan, as if he'd stepped on something sharp and was surprised by the sting of pain, truly did Harry in. Teddy arched up into his hand and made the sound again, more quietly this time, as if he was afraid to be caught but couldn't stop himself.   
  
Harry's breath was coming faster, and his cock was achingly heavy, tenting not only his pyjama pants but the Invisibility Clock as well. He tried to stay quiet, and told himself again that he should leave, but he was so hard that he was afraid he wouldn't even be able to Apparate properly, let alone walk. He stood watching, wide-eyed as Teddy's pace picked up and his chest began to heave. Harry wondered why Teddy's face was covered; was that some type of fetish? He found himself wishing, guiltily, insanely, that he could see Teddy's face, and tried to imagine what it looked like under the cloth: would he bite his lip and pinch his eyes up tight with the agony of remaining quiet, or would he be slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, his mouth wet and open?   
  
Teddy began to arch up into his hand in panicked little thrusts and Harry knew he was close. His fingers ghosted over his own cock, stiff beneath two layers of cloth, but he didn't dare do anything bolder than that as he watched Teddy come, spurting over his hand and onto his partially exposed stomach. Harry could see Teddy's mouth moving beneath the cloth that covered his face as Teddy took great gulps of air until his breath shuddered out in weakened huffs as the last of his come spilled lazily from the tip of his cock.   
  
Harry was flushed with arousal and afraid to waste what was really a rare phenomenon for him in the past year or so: a desire to come that was so intense that it washed all other concerns away, including the fact that he was spying on his godson in order to vicariously re-experience his lost youth, the sort of desperate longing for release that would send Teddy out onto the porch in the middle of the night just for this. For some reason that was what was getting to Harry the most: that surly, closed-off Teddy even _had_ these types of secret desires. Of course he did, but for some reason Harry was stunned, and so hard in the face of the evidence that his cock hurt with every begging throb.   
  
He stood completely still and watched Teddy remove the cloth from his face. Teddy held it under his nose and inhaled deeply, and Harry realised what it was that he was holding. His missing shirt.   
  
"Oh."   
  
As soon as the involuntarily noise of surprise had left Harry's lips his blood turned to ice. Teddy shot up into a sitting position on the sofa and stuffed the shirt behind his back before even attempting to cover his cock or clean himself up.   
  
"Who's there?" Teddy asked, panting in terror. He grabbed his wand from the table but still didn't move to hide himself. His cock was beginning to soften, and for some reason the sight filled -  
  
Harry with an overwhelming sense of protective tenderness for Teddy. What was he doing? Had he really gone completely mad just from a normal stretch of sexual frustration? He was so ashamed. He Apparated away, but just before he disappeared from the second floor porch and reappeared on the third, he thought he heard Teddy ask, frightened, and so softly that it broke Harry's heart:   
  
"Harry?"   
  
After all, he was the owner of the Invisibility Cloak, and who else could have been standing in the middle of the room unseen? Harry was frantic with shame and worry as he knelt on the floor of the porch attached to master bedroom, a cold ocean breeze ghosting across his back. His erection was gone; probably some effect of Apparation. Harry had certainly never had cause to Apparate while hard before.   
  
Disoriented, his mind reeling, Harry crawled up off the floor and stood trying to catch his breath. Then he held it, listening for sounds from Teddy below. He heard the faint squeak of the sofa cushions and a muttered spell as Teddy removed his faulty Concealing Charm. Teddy's footsteps moved with a lethargic drag across the porch, then the door to the second floor opened and shut and all Harry could hear was the quiet lap of the ocean down below.   
  
He got into bed, shivering with guilt. Ginny was fast asleep and oblivious; Harry had had trouble sleeping since he was very young, and she was more than accustomed to his unannounced entrances and exits. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, wanting his heart to stop racing, though he knew there was little hope of that. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine Teddy throwing open the bedroom door dramatically and demanding to know the location of the Invisibility Cloak; Harry had hurriedly shoved it under the bed. But no one came, and the house was silent.   
  
He tried to sleep, but gave up quickly when his heart continued to ram his ribcage wildly and the images of Teddy would not fade. Harry wet his lips and allowed himself to picture Teddy on the porch downstairs, thinking he was alone, how guiltily he would have spread Harry's shirt over his face and sucked in the smell of him. But that couldn't be right; Teddy could scarcely be in the same room with Harry without snarling at him in disgust for some reason or another. Perhaps he thought it was someone else's shirt. That, of course, made even less sense than the idea of Teddy harbouring some secret sexual desire for Harry.   
  
Harry's cock reawakened with the thought, and he shifted uncomfortably, his heart beating faster. Could Teddy have been downstairs touching his cock and thinking of Harry, wanting -- what? Harry's mouth around him? His mouth around Harry?   
  
Very carefully, Harry sneaked a hand under the bed sheets. He glanced at Ginny, who would have bounced with happiness if she were awake to see Harry's erection, which was beginning to tent the sheets. There had been much sobbing with the Marriage Healer about how Harry's lack of physical response made her feel ugly and unwanted, though she was still a very -beautiful woman in her early forties. Harry did his best to assure her that he wasn't getting hard for other women, either, but she didn't believe him. His mind raced with terror when he thought about what he was getting hard for now. A man. A young man. His godson, for fuck's sake. Teddy.   
  
Just the thought of Teddy's name made Harry's cock pulse with need, and he was fully hard quickly, as if his body was more than ready to pick up where he'd left off downstairs. He glanced at Ginny again. She was turned away, motionless. Very carefully, he reached down and thumbed the underside of his cock through his pyjamas. Even that dull, tiny sensation sent sparks through his entire nervous system, from the seat of his balls all the way up to his neck. He very slowly undid the fly button on his pants and inched two fingertips inside to stroke the hot flesh of his cock. It took everything he had in him not to gasp in outrageous satisfaction; it had been so long that his eyes actually watered. He'd forgotten how to make himself feel good like this, like nothing else mattered, not his sleeping wife and her hurt feelings or the children whose lives he'd built his own around. Not his relationship to Teddy, what little there was of it. At the moment Harry didn't care about anything except the pressure of his fingertips as they slid stealthily up and down the underside of his cock.   
  
It was infuriating, trying to bring himself off this way. He wanted to cast a concealment spell or Apparate somewhere where he could groan and yank hard on his leaking cock, but something about his encounter with Teddy stopped him. He was afraid to leave the safety of his bed, lest he discover something else tantalizing and disturbing in the rented house, and in the state he was in he had little faith that he could cast a better Concealing Charm than the botched one Teddy had managed downstairs. So he lay still, his furious heartbeat the only indication that just the careful brush on his fingers over his cock was maddeningly good. He inched his legs apart a little at a time, keeping his eyes on Ginny, and reached in further to caress his balls, which were hot and sweating and sensitive from so much teasing stimulation. Harry let his eyes slide shut and allowed his hips to twitch, just barely, then regretted it greatly when Ginny rolled toward him.   
  
Her eyes were still closed, and she moaned a little with the effort of getting comfortable, shoving one hand under her pillow. Harry thought his heart would explode; he still had his hand down the front of his pants, his balls cupped carefully with just two fingers and his thumb at the base of his cock, which seemed to have a heartbeat of its own. He stared at his wife as her face again settled peacefully into sleep. What was he doing? How could he be this way, after everything Ginny had sacrificed for him? She had quit a profitable and exciting Quidditch career to raise Harry's children. What had he ever really done for her since the Chamber of Secrets?   
  
Even these melancholy thoughts couldn't sink Harry's persistent cock, which was sobbing precome against the sheets. Harry could smell the murky scent of his own arousal, which was hardly familiar to him anymore. He withdrew his hand from his pyjama front slowly and flattened it on his chest. His cock was still jutting out of his pyjamas, so he turned onto his side, toward Ginny, to prevent it from making an obvious tent. Smashing his eyes shut tightly, he willed his thoughts about the incident on the second floor away, but they were as stubborn as his erection: the way Teddy's feet had shifted apart on the floor, first his toes and then his heels, gingerly but eager, too. And the way he had breathed in the scent of Harry's shirt afterward, as if -- as if what? As if he wanted to put it in his mouth and suck on it.   
  
Harry lay still and tried to keep his breathing quiet. It hurt badly to allow his cock to deflate until it was sad and crusted with dried precome. He tucked it back into his pyjamas and rolled over. The pain was more emotional than physical, even with his balls aching and unspilled. Finally, he'd had what he and Ginny had been seeking for months, the key that would lock them together again. But Harry could never have awoken Ginny and slipped inside her when his mind was full of nothing but that image of Teddy with his legs apart and his face hidden, pulling on his cock and coming so hard just from the smell of Harry's shirt.   
  
*   
  
The next morning was gloomy and overcast, and the children haunted about the rental while Harry nursed a headache that no amount of Mistress Tilly's De-stressing Solution could conquer. He had slept poorly, of course, and dreamed of Sirius. Teddy had not yet shown his face, and when Harry asked James if Teddy was still sleeping in the bedroom James said of course he was. Part of Harry wanted to go into the bedroom, shut the door behind him and place an understanding hand between Teddy's shoulder blades to rouse him, and another part of him wanted to invent some important consulting that needed doing abroad, leave Greece at once and avoid Teddy for the rest of his life.   
  
It wasn't the first time he'd been aroused by a man, and he was disturbed and depressed by the parallel this incident struck to the previous one, which he didn't like to remember. The first time Harry ever stroked himself off thinking of anyone but Cho Chang was a few hours after he'd hugged Sirius at Grimmauld Place during the summer before his fifth year. To that point in his life, no one had ever touched him the way Sirius did on that quiet afternoon when they were finally alone together for a moment in the room that held Sirius' defiled family tree. Harry had hugged Ron and Hermione, and had of course been assaulted by Mrs Weasley's jubilant affections, but something about the hug with Sirius moved him deeply in a way that he didn't understand for years. He had embraced Harry not the way that others had, as if they were overwhelmed by sympathetic pity or simple relief that he wasn't dead, but as if Harry was truly sacred to him, someone to be drawn close against his chest for no real reason except that he seemed to belong there. Harry hadn't wanted to let go, and after he had, he was still tingling with the touch. He had a wank before dinner while Ron and Hermione were off doing whatever it was they did together back then when they weren't fighting, and he sank into that lingering feeling, allowing himself to call up the warm, sharp smell of Sirius when he'd been so close, the scruff of his short beard against Harry's temple and the heat of his chest. He came all over himself just as quickly as he had when he'd first tried beating off back at Hogwarts in his second year. And of course, later, there was the incident with Remus.   
  
"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, appearing suddenly to put the back of her hand against Harry's forehead. "You look a bit ill."   
  
"I am, I think," Harry said, standing. "Nothing a long walk won't cure, though. Would you like to come with me?"   
  
He could see by Hermione's face that she'd rather not; she'd been in the midst of instructing Rose on the magical properties of the fig leaves she'd picked by the beach two days earlier and hung to dry. But she seemed to think that Harry needed her company, because she smiled dutifully and nodded.   
  
The beach was empty and the sea was rough. Hermione chattered about how she'd heard from a witch down at the sundries shop that more storms were on the way and fretted that they should have taken the trip later in the summer. Harry didn't say that he couldn't have possibly waited any longer to escape his life in London.   
  
"What's bothering you?" Hermione asked, placing her hand on Harry's arm as they walked along the shore. "Are you and Ginny having problems again?"   
  
"That's rather direct," Harry said, but he smiled. He never would have believed, as a teenager, that someday he would take comfort in Hermione's obnoxious concerns about his life.   
  
"Oh, Harry. You can tell me. I promise I won't gossip to Ron."   
  
"That's a lot of bollocks, there. You tell him everything."   
  
"Not everything! If you took me into your confidence I wouldn't let anything spill. It's not as if he wants to chat about his sister's sex life, anyhow."   
  
"I don't especially want to chat about it, either."   
  
"Fine, Harry, but you can't keep everything bottled up."   
  
"We're seeing a Marriage Healer!"   
  
"You know I have no faith in that profession! You need to facilitate communication with your wife, not the Healer."   
  
"That's exactly what the Healer tells us, actually. To facilitate communication. Is there a spell for that?"   
  
"Don't joke!"   
  
"I'm not, actually."   
  
Hermione shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest as the wind blew in cold against them. It was as if Harry's gloom had followed them to the sunny little island where he thought he could escape it: now, instead of frolicking on the beach or exploring the floor of the sea with the help of the giant jars of gillyweed they'd brought along, they would be confined to exactly the sort of suffocating space that they were stuffed into during the children's summers at home, only now they had the far jollier Weasley family close by to make them feel especially inadequate.   
  
"I've done everything wrong," Harry said, knowing that he could be melodramatic with Hermione; she always knew when to not take him seriously.   
  
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she said.   
  
"Do you want to hear a curious old secret of mine?" Harry asked. Hermione raised an eyebrow.   
  
"I'm not sure," she said. "Is it very dark?"   
  
"No. Yes. Well, I don't know. I need your input on that, actually."   
  
"Fine, tell me," she said, pretending not to be very eager for new information on virtually anything.   
  
"You remember that summer before fifth year, when we found out about the Order and stayed at Grimmauld Place until we left for school? Or you two did, anyway, but I was there for a short time."   
  
"Lest you ever let us live that down," Hermione said.   
  
"I think I've earned a few childish grudges, thank you," Harry said. "Anyway, that afternoon before we left, I was looking for you two and the house was so quiet, I thought the adults were all downstairs having a meeting, but then I walked toward that old study in the back and I heard this strange sound. I thought maybe it was the ghost of one of Sirius' evil relatives, so I went quiet and peeked inside, and, well. To put it bluntly, I saw Remus Lupin giving Sirius a blow job."   
  
"Oh." Hermione stopped walking and made an uncertain face. "Are you sure that's what you saw?"   
  
"Hermione, what a classic question! Of course I am! Even back then I knew enough about what -  
  
blokes wanted from girls to understand what they were doing to each other. I suppose it should have occurred to me that some blokes might want it from other blokes, but I had rather a lot of other things on my mind at the time and it was a bit of a shock."   
  
"Well, of course it was a shock!" Hermione said. "To see two people you were close to -- being intimate -- when you were so young. And, oh, Harry -- Tonks."   
  
"Yes, precisely. I rather put it out of my mind -- or I think I talked myself into thinking that Remus was only doing it as some kind of favour to Sirius because of all that he'd been through, that it was just Sirius who was bent, but now -- now, I don't know."   
  
"I suppose it doesn't matter too much," Hermione said. "As far as Remus' motivations, anyway. They're both --" She stopped short of _gone_.   
  
"Yes, well, it really sort of affected me," Harry said, wincing when he heard the words out loud. Hermione frowned.   
  
"How do you mean?" she asked.   
  
"I don't just mean that, I mean the whole summer," Harry said. He was always doing this; halfway wanting to hash out his issues with Hermione and then going back on his desire to do so when she began to figure things out.   
  
"Well, why are you thinking of it now?" Hermione asked, still frowning. "What's it got to do with anything anymore?"   
  
"Nothing," Harry said. "Forget it. I just -- I suppose it's being around Teddy that makes me think of it. You know, Remus, who he really was. I thought I would at least be able to truly get to know him, but." He didn't have to continue the sentiment. Hermione sighed.   
  
"We all lost people," she said. Her parents' memories of her were never able to be properly restored. The spell she'd used to erase them as a clever but inexperienced young girl had been too strong.   
  
"You know, you're the only one who doesn't treat me like a delicate flower when I talk about this stuff," Harry said, not enjoying this at the moment.   
  
"Ginny treats you like a delicate flower under any circumstances? I find that hard to believe."   
  
"No, I suppose she doesn't, either, but she'll get emotional about Fred at the slightest mention of the War, and once we got into a horrible row when I'd got a bit fed up with it and told -  
  
her she could have lost so much more of her family and that she should be grateful that so many survived."   
  
"Harry! What a nasty thing to say!"   
  
"I know, I felt terrible. It just ripped out of me. I'm finding that happening more and more as I get older. Uncontrollable things."   
  
Hermione gave him an appraising look that made him very nervous. They had come to the end of the beach by the rental and had turned around, and were now nearly back to the house. The wind was getting stronger.   
  
"If you're thinking of having the marriage Undone --" Hermione began.   
  
"No!" Harry said. "Not at all, God, Hermione, don't be so dramatic."   
  
"I'm being dramatic! You've brought me out here in this horrible weather to tell me that you're still having angst about seeing your godfather getting sucked off by your former teacher and I'm being dramatic?"   
  
"I'm not having angst! I just wanted to tell someone! Piss off if you don't want to hear it!"   
  
Hermione groaned. "You Potters," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Rather moody these days. Teddy, too."   
  
"Leave Teddy alone, he's had a hard life," Harry said. Hermione turned for the house but Harry caught her arm before she could storm off. "Sorry," he said. "Lately I can't seem to talk to anyone without having them hate me by the end of the conversation."   
  
"I don't hate you," Hermione said. "I'm only frustrated with you."   
  
"I'm rather frustrated with myself. Listen, do you think Teddy resents me because I wasn't there for him when he was growing up, as a sort of stand-in father figure?"   
  
"I doubt it," Hermione said. "He seemed to resent his stand-in mother figure quite enough and she was there for him."   
  
"Well, until she died."   
  
"And suddenly she was sainted. Harry, I don't know what to make of Teddy Lupin, honestly. But you certainly did everything you could to make him feel like a member of the family."   
  
"Did I, really? I always wanted so much more from Sirius than he was prepared, that is, able to give me -- I never resented him for it, but I might have."   
  
"What's the solution here?" Hermione asked. "Spend time with Teddy now if you think that will mend his resentment. But if I were you I'd be more worried about spending time with my wife."   
  
This struck through Harry heavily; even when she didn't have all of the facts, Hermione certainly had a way of cutting him right to the quick. They Apparated back into the house and Hermione went down to the ground floor, where she and Ron slept. Harry went up to the third floor to have a shower, but it was occupied, probably by Rose or Lily based on the smell of Navinia's Never-Fail Hair Taming Potion emanating from the bathroom. Harry groaned in annoyance and shut himself in his bedroom. Ginny was downstairs with Albus, probably wiping pumpkin juice from his chin while he whined about the difficulty of his life. Sometimes she reminded Harry so much of Petunia with Dudley that it made him shudder. Meanwhile, James was off somewhere, certainly making mischief with Hugo that Ron would find hilarious upon its discovery. Harry sat on the end of his bed and pondered the whereabouts of Teddy. Was he still in bed? What difference would it make to Harry either way? Hermione was right: Harry should be focusing his relationship-mending efforts on his wife. But what if Teddy knew that Harry had been standing there in the darkness the night before, watching him? Could he press charges for that sort of thing? Hermione would be horrified if she knew, and Ginny would literally kill Harry if she ever found out.   
  
He went downstairs, roaming the house aimlessly. Ron had passed out on the couch with the wireless playing a Quidditch game between Greece and Italy. Lily was writing furiously in her journal across the room from her slumbering uncle, and the sight made Harry's skin tighten. He wished to God that every innocent thing in the world didn't remind him of some horror from his school days. Including Teddy, though seeing Remus sucking on Sirius' cock that day had hardly been horrible. Harry had reeled in confusion for a few hours after witnessing it, and then the details settled comfortably into his mind in a way that had made his cock stir: Sirius' fingers twisted through Remus' hair as Remus' head bobbed over Sirius' cock in a leisurely fashion, the way Sirius' head was tipped back just slightly, his eyes shut and his expression serene, and that low, contented sound that was humming in the back of Sirius' throat.   
  
Harry began to get hard just remembering it, and he returned to his bedroom, smiling a little and feeling pleasantly wicked. He thought about putting a locking spell on the door and spreading himself out on the bed for a long overdue wank, thinking of nothing but that scene that had burned itself into his brain at fifteen, Remus on his knees and eager, Sirius sated as he guided Remus' head. But Ginny was adept at breaking locking spells, so Harry pushed the thoughts away and only sat heavily on the end of the bed. It wasn't healthy, anyway. It wasn't as if he could suddenly decide he'd been attracted to men all along. He had enough problems, and had endured enough negative attention for one lifetime, despite the fact that the papers called him a saviour on a regular basis. They were fond of using the term ironically now, in their scolding articles about his children's problems in school.   
  
The rain arrived and began to pound against the rental. Harry turned to see it soaking the already damp porch through the screens. He watched the rain for awhile and thought about calling the whole vacation off, going home before more damage could be done. When he had written Teddy about coming along he'd expected, and maybe even hoped, that Teddy would turn down the invitation, but now his chief reason for staying in Greece was that Teddy was two floors below, sulking in his bed. Or maybe wanking himself quietly under the blankets, with Harry's shirt balled up beside his pillow, where Teddy could easily stuff his face into the fabric and remember the smell of Harry's skin.   
  
Harry sniffed his own sleeve, then laughed at himself. Maybe he was losing his mind, but he felt indignant in the moment, as if he deserved to let it be lost after everything he'd done.   
  
These were always his darkest moods, when he considered what the world owed him. It reminded him a great deal of being fifteen and feeling entitled to smash everything in sight just because things had been hard for him. He sighed and stood to leave the bedroom and rejoin the others.   
  
*   
  
The rain lasted into the evening, and it was Harry's turn to prepare dinner. He set to work in the kitchen, attempting to make a simple and crowd-pleasing dinner of pizza, but the dough wasn't responding to his spells the way he'd hoped it would. It was leaden and refused to rise, and he didn't want to give Hermione the pleasure of being appealed to for help with even cooking, which she was rubbish at, and didn't want to bother Ginny, either, as he knew she would complain that she ended up doing everything while he feigned helplessness with all but the most interesting tasks. Ron of course was useless in the kitchen. Harry stood with his back to the stairway that led down to the second floor's lively living area, where the children were playing some type of card game that involved the occasional blast of water to the face from one of the unlucky cards. There was much shrieking and laughter involved, and as Harry stood staring at the globby lumps of ruined pizza dough that dotted the kitchen counter and pondering how to break the news to his momentarily cheerful family that dinner would have to be ordered out from the gyro shop again, he was almost on the verge of tears.   
  
Someone jogged up the stairs behind him and Harry hurriedly disposed of the dough, levitating all of it into the bin in one easy flick of his wand. Maybe he had enough supplies to start again. He turned to see who was coming into the kitchen: it was Teddy, his eyes red and puffy from sleep and his hair terribly dishevelled. He paused on the top step and stared at Harry for a moment, looking frightened, and then quickly angry. Harry lost his breath, and when the rain blasted against the window behind him he startled like an infant.   
  
"I didn't know you were up here," Teddy said. He went to the cabinet and took down a cup and saucer for tea. Harry wondered why he didn't use his wand. Did he have that little faith in his spell work, that he wouldn't trust himself not to break the china?   
  
"It's alright," Harry said, not even halfway knowing what he meant. Teddy gave him an irritable look and set about getting some of the best tea leaves from a jar Hermione kept tucked behind the more serviceable blends.   
  
"Have you been sleeping all day?" Harry asked. He was sorry that the question sounded so peevish, as he hardly had a right to complain about Teddy's strange habits, considering his own behaviour the night before. He prayed that Teddy hadn't spent all day wondering how he would break the news about Harry's perversion to the rest of the family.   
  
"Not all day," Teddy said, and Harry blushed, wondering if there was something suggestive in his tone. No, no, he was imagining things. He began conjuring measurements of flour again.   
  
"Are you baking a cake for dinner?" Teddy asked, leaning against the counter beside Harry while he sipped his tea.   
  
"Pizza," Harry said. Teddy snorted, and Harry glared at him. "Is that funny for some reason?" he asked. Teddy just shrugged and watched Harry attempt to remake the dough. Harry wanted to ask him to leave, because his closeness was making Harry's hands shake. Teddy smelled like sleep, like warm blankets.   
  
"What's your plan exactly?" Harry asked as the dough plopped lifelessly onto the counter, looking just as it did after his prior attempt.   
  
"My plan?" Teddy said, incredulous.   
  
"Yes, for your life."   
  
"I don't know." Teddy scoffed. "What's yours?"   
  
Harry flushed with annoyance, but when Teddy smiled a little, wickedly, Harry smiled, too, and looked again at his ruined attempt at making dinner.   
  
"My plan is to somehow resurrect this dough," he said.   
  
"Here," Teddy said impatiently, taking his wand from the pocket of his trousers -- those battered tan trousers, the same pair he'd been wearing the night before on the porch -- and muttering a spell Harry didn't recognise in the direction of the dough. Harry winced, afraid the dough might explode fantastically all over the kitchen, but instead it morphed and began to rise rapidly, until it was perfectly puffy and ready to be worked with.   
  
"You know how to cook?" Harry asked, astonished.   
  
"A little," Teddy said. His cheeks were pink. Harry wondered why he was embarrassed, but then, when was the last time anybody complimented Teddy Lupin's skills with a wand? There had been theories among his professors at Hogwarts that Remus' werewolf--spoiled blood had somehow corrupted Teddy's ability to do proper magic, but Harry had always suspected a more run of the mill laziness. Teddy pressed his lips together, and Harry's cheeks burned, too, as he hoped that Teddy's embarrassment had nothing to do with the night before. Maybe Harry had only guiltily imagined Teddy saying his name as he Apparated away. After all, if he did know that Harry had spied on him in that most intimate moment, he likely would be avoiding him as usual, rather than lingering with him in the kitchen and rescuing his dinner. Unless of course he'd liked the idea of Harry standing there in the darkness, watching him. The red on Harry's cheeks spread down to his neck, and he began to sweat a bit. Teddy was staring at him, not confrontational or flirtatious, just looking, his face soft with curiosity.   
  
"Well, thank you," Harry said. "I don't suppose you want to help me make the sauce? Ginny always says I use too much salt."   
  
"You cook for her?" Teddy sounded disgusted, and for some reason this made Harry grin. He imagined Hermione shaking her head at his behaviour in disgust. Well, fine. He'd imagined that plenty of times before in his life and it rarely stopped him.   
  
They worked on the meal together while the others continued their revelry downstairs and the rain fell steadily outside. Harry mostly leaned on the counter and drank wine while he watched Teddy put the pizzas together with ease. It was cosy, being alone with him while still within earshot of the others. Harry imagined what his Marriage Healer would say, or the Psyche Healer he'd seen after the War when his nightmares kept him up all night: _You are projecting your orphandom onto the younger man. You want to save him so that you can comfort your lonely inner child._ Harry laughed to himself, thinking this. He was starting to get a little drunk.   
  
"What's funny?" Teddy asked, immediately defensive and frowning deeply as the pizzas slid into the clay oven.   
  
"I was laughing at myself," Harry said.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because of the way I've begun to think about things. It seems like all I ever do is try to imagine what other people would think about what I'm doing or saying or feeling."   
  
"That's pathetic," Teddy said lightly. He took the wine glass from Harry and drank some.   
  
"Do you like it?" Harry asked. His voice came out unusually low and something heavy shifted in his stomach. Teddy handed the glass back.   
  
"Yeah," he said. "It's good."   
  
They stood facing each other as the conversation drained away. They were about the same height and roughly the same build, tall and thin but not lanky. Harry had filled out through the middle when he was about Teddy's age and Teddy was beginning to grow a bit thicker himself, probably -  
  
due to his leisurely lifestyle. Teddy had a good combination of his parents' features, and he was neither a Metamorphmagus nor a werewolf, thankfully. Harry would not have liked to see Teddy's appearance change, certainly not as a wolf and not even like his mother's had, for fun. Teddy had a sadness to his face, like his father, but he had his mother's sharpness, too. Harry almost dipped in toward Teddy, thinking about how much he liked the way he looked, and how grateful he was that Teddy's sandy hair and gray eyes wouldn't shift like seasons. He swayed back against the counter and laughed at himself again.   
  
"Lightweight," Teddy whispered. Harry heard footsteps clambering up the stairs and the shouting voices of Lily and Rose. He waited for Teddy to move away, and when he didn't, Harry did.   
  
"Dad, what on earth is taking so long?" Lily asked, throwing herself to a seat at the kitchen table. "We're all starving!"   
  
"I messed everything up and Teddy had to rescue the meal," Harry said, sitting down across from her. Lily boggled at him.   
  
"Teddy?" she asked in disbelief. Harry looked up to see Teddy heading for the stairs.   
  
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.   
  
"The food's ready," Teddy said, walking away.   
  
"Aren't you going to eat?" Harry called. Teddy didn't answer, just jogged down the stairs as Albus and Hugo ran up to check on the progress of dinner.   
  
"Pizza!" Hugo shouted appreciatively. Harry gave him a tight smile as the others made their way upstairs. He wanted to follow Teddy downstairs and sit beside him on the edge of his bed, pet his hair, pull him close and tell him -- tell him what? _You're special, you're cherished, you are loved dearly._ Everything he'd wanted to hear when he was alone among someone else's indifferent family in the house on Privet Drive.   
  
But Harry stayed at the table. His wife was asking him a question, and Hermione was staring at him suspiciously, and the children were asking if they should be expected to serve themselves.

*

Everyone was in bed relatively early that night, the persistent noise of the rain making the children sleepy after dinner. Ginny read from the biography of some female Quidditch star she admired and Harry leaned beside her in bed, staring at the morning edition of the _Quibbler_ , his eyes unfocused as he thought about Teddy curled up in bed, his stomach growling. Perhaps he would get up in the middle of the night and have a bite of the leftover pizza. Or perhaps he would get up in the middle of the night for some other reason entirely.   
  
"Albus was asking me for a Cheering Charm after dinner," Ginny said, her book still open in her lap and her eyes cast down to its pages.   
  
"If you keep giving him those every time he asks the effect will be completely dulled and he'll become one of those addicts --"   
  
"Did I say I gave him one?" Ginny snapped, her voice rising.   
  
"You didn't?" Harry asked, stunned. He couldn't remember the last time Ginny had denied Albus anything. She frowned and shut her book.   
  
"Well, what was I supposed to do?" she asked. "Allow him to be miserable?"   
  
"Why should he be miserable? He's got food and shelter and a family who loves him --"   
  
Ginny scoffed. "You fail to see the point of everything, Harry, literally everything. I suppose it was your upbringing."   
  
The temperature in the room seemed to drop, and Harry threw the _Quibbler_ aside.   
  
"Yes," he said tightly. "I suppose it is my _upbringing_ that makes me wonder how my children turned out to be so ungrateful for everything they've been handed."   
  
"They're perfectly normal teenagers!" Ginny said, whispering sharply now, as if someone was outside the door, listening. "You wouldn't know anything about that, so I wonder at how you feel so qualified to judge them."   
  
"You're right. Considering all I've been through, I should just sit back and refrain from having any opinions on normal things." Harry wanted to storm away, but where would he go? If he Apparated back to London to spend the night at the family house alone, things would be worse when he returned, and he would have to return eventually, of course.   
  
He rolled over and smashed his eyes shut. Ginny tutted as if this was typical, and soon she was setting her book aside and whispering a spell to put out the lights. Harry cracked his eyes open as she settled violently into place on the other side of their large bed, punching her pillow twice. Outside, the rain continued to fall.   
  
Harry lay awake and listened for the familiar sounds of Ginny's breath quieting and going steady with sleep. The Weasleys all possessed this ability to fall asleep immediately, no matter what sort of anarchy was going on in the household around them. He tried to imagine what it would be like if they did have their marriage Undone. The children would hate him and the wizarding world would go wild with glee at the opportunity to remark on his ability to make grave personal mistakes after all. The family he had always wanted would dissipate, and he would have to get a little flat in London, where he would live alone, as in a broom closet.   
  
After he had been in bed for what might have been several hours or several minutes, Harry went tense at the sound of movement on the second floor. The door to the porch opened and shut. Harry's heart began to race as he imagined Teddy performing the same ritual he had the night before: pushing the trousers down impatiently and bringing himself off with the scent of Harry's shirt to fuel his fantasies. In the kitchen Harry had been certain that something tangible was passing between him and Teddy, some exchange of understanding, but perhaps he was only a twisted old man projecting his long-ignored desires onto poor Teddy. But Teddy was hardly a child; he was a man of twenty-five, and if Harry's actions the night before had made him uncomfortable he could leave any time he liked and return to his life in London, where he lived alone in a flat, as in a broom closet. Harry threw the blankets away and got out of bed.   
  
He looked back at Ginny; she hadn't stirred. Moving with careful determination and not pausing to really think things through, he knelt down and reached under the bed to find his Invisibility Cloak. When he couldn't find it, he ducked down to search, but as his eyes adjusted to the washed-out moonlight, he realised it was gone. His breath hitched, but he tried not to panic. Perhaps Ginny had found it and returned it to the bureau. He couldn't risk an _Accio Cloak_ or waking Ginny to ask if she'd seen it, so he simply Apparated out to the porch outside of their bedroom without it. Once there, he listened for noises below. There was nothing. Perhaps he'd only imagined or dreamed hearing the door.   
  
When he turned and looked through the glass doors that led back to the bedroom, he couldn't imagine returning, getting back into bed with Ginny and trying in vain to sleep. He was overcome with a deep sadness that made him feel inert and heavy, as if both his feet weighed several tons each. In lieu of walking, he Apparated. He'd halfway meant to Apparate only to the second floor living area, but he found himself on the porch instead. It had never happened to him before, but he had heard about this phenomenon. Semi-unconscious Apparation. Maybe he could blame the wine.   
  
The second floor porch was dark and empty. Harry sighed and stared at the couch where he'd seen Teddy the night before. Already it seemed like only a dream, and Harry thought about sitting on the couch, casting a proper Concealing Charm and having a wank himself, but his cock was as soft and uninspired as ever, because he was disappointed. He was disappointed not to again find Teddy with his pants down and his legs spread, breathing under the dark sky of Harry's shirt. Even the memory was no longer good enough to make his body spark suddenly back to life.   
  
“Come down here to spy on me again?”   
  
Harry gasped and whirled around, but he saw no one standing behind him, though he'd recognised Teddy's voice. He spun in circles, surveying the dark room, but he saw nothing. He could hear Teddy laughing, closer now. Harry shut his eyes. The Invisibility Cloak, of course.   
  
“I heard something,” Harry said, stammering. “I thought it might be a prowler.”   
  
“I'm sure.”   
  
“Will you take my Cloak off, please? I don't appreciate you using it without asking.”   
  
“I don't appreciate you coming round to watch every time I have a wank.”   
  
“Keep your voice down!”   
  
Teddy laughed again, and it sent chills through Harry. He wasn't dealing with a helpless child here; Teddy was perfectly capable of blackmail, among other things.   
  
“What exactly is your game?” Harry asked, frowning and turning again, though Teddy still wouldn't appear.   
  
“My game? Try and find me. I'll stand in one place.”   
  
“This is absurd.”   
  
“You're absurd, watching me like some common – I suppose you think that just because I had your shirt you had the right –”   
  
“I didn't think – I don't even know what you're talking about!”   
  
Harry found one of Teddy's invisible shoulders, and then the other. He gripped them tightly, appreciating the feeling of the Cloak's fabric; it was slippery and silky and sexy, really, a thing that evaded a person's grip after teasing through it. Teddy reached up and pulled the hood of the Cloak back so that only his head and neck were visible. He was smiling, but his lips were shaking.   
  
“You have disappointed me more than anyone else in my entire life,” Teddy said, staring at Harry without blinking, the imitation of a smile still on his face. “More than even the dead ones.”   
  
“I'm so sorry,” Harry said, barely able to speak. Never had anyone said something so devastating to him with such placid conviction. “Of anybody – you – least of all did I want to disappoint you.”   
  
"Least of all me?" Teddy frowned as if Harry had insulted him. "Why least of all me?"   
  
"Because you were alone. Well, you had your grandmother, but you seemed, to me, so similar to myself when I was a boy. So similarly lost. And I could have related to you, I could have been more, I don't know. Attentive."   
  
Teddy snorted and pulled the Cloak's hood back up over his head. He stepped out of Harry's grip and Harry heard him pacing around him in circles. Harry stood still, feeling as if he was waiting to be judged by some invisible force.   
  
"I had my grandmother, yes," Teddy said. "More than you had, until you finished school, and then you had everything."   
  
"It still hurts," Harry said. "What happened to me."   
  
"What _happened_ to you? What are you talking about?"   
  
"With the Dursleys. My aunt and uncle."   
  
"What did they do to you exactly?" Teddy asked, some of the venom leaking from his voice. "I've heard all sorts of rumours." He stopped pacing and pulled the hood back again. His face was different now, calmer, as if the Cloak itself had transformed it.   
  
"Nothing." Harry's heart raced. He hated to talk about it and had disclosed the details of the Dursley's abuse to no one, though of course Ron and Hermione had mentioned things to people, so a few of the stories were known. Harry neither confirmed nor denied any of it.   
  
"Nothing?" Teddy said. "Well, of course it was something. Did they hit you?"   
  
Harry was determined not to answer, but then he did anyway.   
  
"Sometimes," he said. "Not usually. It was usually more that they dragged me or pushed me. You know. To get me into the cupboard."   
  
He'd never said any of this out loud. He felt lightheaded and thought about sitting on the sofa, but he couldn't seem to move. Teddy's eyes were wide and sympathetic, two moons shining in the dark room. Harry realised that they were nearly the colour of the Cloak's material when it was visible.   
  
"My gran got into bed with me once," Teddy said in a rush. Harry's blood froze, and for a moment he couldn't find his voice.   
  
"Oh, Teddy," Harry said, aching for him. "She didn't --?"   
  
"No," Teddy said. "She didn't want anything like that from me. She wanted me to be her dead husband, but she just wanted to lay her head on my shoulder and clutch at me and tell me about her day. You know she went mad before she died. I think she might have even died from it, the madness. The grief."   
  
Harry shut his eyes and thought about Teddy as a teenager, how he had changed so dramatically around age fourteen, when he started having illicit romances at school and lost interest in his coursework. Harry should have known. He should have been paying attention. There were little mentions from Teddy, even earlier, about Andromeda's slip-ups, the way she would call him Ted as if she wanted to forget, for a moment, which Ted she was talking to. Harry remembered squeezing Teddy's shoulder and telling him that Andromeda was just getting old. -  
  
He'd had no idea it had been this bad, but now it was clear that Teddy had wanted him to inquire further. To care.   
  
He walked toward Teddy, but Teddy pulled the hood up over his head again and stepped away. Harry listened as he walked to the other side of the porch.   
  
"At her funeral," Harry said. "You were so upset. We couldn't understand -- we didn't know -- why you'd seemed so resentful of her in the years before her death. And then, you were sobbing so hard --"   
  
"I was relieved," Teddy said. His voice was far away and uneven. "I was crying from relief. I loved her so much, she raised me. But she went, she went – and I couldn't tell anyone, I couldn't have her locked up in some horrible hospital for the unstable. When she finally died, oh, God. I was glad."   
  
Harry crossed the porch and searched for Teddy, his arms out in front of him. He found one of his shoulders, but Teddy ducked away.   
  
"I should have known," Harry said. "If only I'd come to call more often -- you were always coming to our house, we hardly ever saw Andromeda."   
  
"It doesn't matter now," Teddy said. He was close. Harry reached out and felt the slippery material of the Cloak, hanging at Teddy's side.   
  
"It does," Harry said. "It does. Teddy, I know. I know what it's like to be so alone, to not even want to tell anyone how bad it really is, to not want anyone to know, to be embarrassed though it isn't, wasn't your fault -- it never leaves you."   
  
Teddy was silent, and Harry could guess that it was because he didn't want Harry to hear the shake in his voice. Harry closed his hand around Teddy's side and pulled him closer, and then fully into his arms. It was odd, hugging someone invisible, but he could smell Teddy's sleep-ripened skin mixed with the familiar scent of the Cloak, which was his own. He thought about Teddy wanting to be wrapped in the Cloak, in the smell of Harry, and let go of him. He felt horrible for what had transpired the night before. Teddy needed a friend and a confidante, a godfather who would cherish and protect him, not a lech who would project selfish desires onto him the way his grandmother had in her madness.   
  
"Don't," Teddy said. He wasn't quite crying, but the threat of tears textured his voice.   
  
"Don't what?" Harry asked, guilt crashing against him again. He had truly failed Teddy, and what he had done the night before was unconscionable.   
  
Teddy pulled the hood back again, showing Harry his face, which was sweet and open, the way Harry remembered Teddy as a child, before things changed. He pushed the Cloak off fully and it piled around his feet like a skin he had shed.   
  
"Don't let me go," Teddy said, barely getting the words out as his throat closed up. Harry exhaled a stunned little noise not unlike he had the night before, when he saw that Teddy was wanking to the smell of his shirt. He pulled Teddy into his arms again, and Teddy clung to him, his hands wrapping around Harry's back.   
  
"I've been horrible," Harry said. "I've been horrible to you." He wanted to kiss Teddy's face a thousand times and bury his nose in Teddy's hair, to breathe in the scent of him.   
  
"Just don't let me go," Teddy whispered. He leaned back to look Harry in the face, and a hot drop of lust sank through Harry's chest and down to his groin, sizzling away every other concern for one sharp second. He stared at Teddy's lips, feeling possessed.   
  
"I did watch you," Harry said. He wanted to wipe Teddy's tears from his cheeks but he was afraid even that would be hopelessly lewd, coming from him. "I'm a monster. I've failed you, I know I have."   
  
"You could still save me," Teddy said, his voice weak and wounded. "I'm still here."   
  
Harry raised a shaking hand to touch Teddy's hair, and Teddy shut his eyes like a cat who was preparing to be stroked.   
  
"I can't," Harry said. He didn't mean to say that he couldn't save Teddy. He couldn't kiss him, which was what, maybe only in Harry's poisoned mind, Teddy seemed to want him to do.   
  
"You won't," Teddy said, opening his eyes, and Harry leaned in to swallow up those words as Teddy's mouth opened under his, to prove them untrue. The soft scrape of Teddy's tongue across his made him hard like a spell had been cast, like he'd never forgotten how to feel this good. Teddy was so warm, and breathing hard, like a child who had been caught stealing. Which was exactly what he was, no matter that he was eight years older than Harry had been when he saved the world.   
  
“The other night,” Harry said, pulling back to breathe against Teddy's cheek. "My shirt – why –?"   
  
“Because I wanted so much, even before my gran went mad, for you to come to her sad little house and take me away, on wonderful adventures. Then when I was older, I don't know. I wanted other things.”   
  
“You're Sirius' second cousin,” Harry said. He was sure he had thought of it before, but it had never seemed to matter like it did now. Teddy was related to both Sirius and Remus. He was what was left in the world of whatever had gone on between them, whatever Harry had witnessed that day in Grimmauld Place. Teddy frowned.   
  
“I'm lots of people's cousin,” he said. “And none of them has me round. Not the Blacks, God -  
  
knows what's left of them, or the Malfoys, or whatever Lupins might still roam the earth. You're the only one who invites me anywhere.”   
  
“And still I'm disappointing,” Harry said. He wasn't arguing this point; he knew that he had been, always, to Teddy. Teddy's eyes filled up.   
  
“I don't know what I want from you,” Teddy said. “Everything, too many things, they're all at odds with each other.”   
  
Harry thought of the way Sirius had embraced him and the confused elation it had set off in Harry, that day and for the rest of his life. He backed Teddy against the wall, and Teddy's mouth fell open just slightly. Harry hesitated. One kiss, in the midst of such an emotional conversation, could be forgiven. But now he was truly on the precipice, poised to make what would probably be the greatest, most selfish mistake of his life. And all he could think about was how he would die, certainly and painfully, if he didn't kiss Teddy again.   
  
“Please,” Teddy cried, and Harry went over the edge of the cliff that echoed bottomlessly before him. He kissed Teddy, in free-fall, pinning him back fully against the wall and pressing their bodies together. Teddy seemed stunned for a moment, as if he hadn't expected Harry to give him what he needed, and why should he? He pushed a long, shaky breath into Harry's mouth and licked through Harry's parted lips. He tasted like something familiar, though Harry was sure he'd never had whatever it was near his mouth before.   
  
They pulled apart a bit and huffed against each other's faces, as if kissing had involved a great deal of physical exertion. Teddy's eyes were wide and unguarded; he looked terrified and was limp in Harry's grip, at his mercy. Harry stood up taller and pressed his knee between Teddy's legs, spreading them apart.   
  
“You should cast a Concealing Charm,” Teddy said. His arms were wrapped around Harry's shoulders, and he pushed his hips forward to brush his stiffening cock against the shape of Harry's.   
  
“No,” Harry said. He wasn't even sure why; he knew Teddy was right, he should. But he didn't want to think about the others in the house, even to protect them from what he was doing with Teddy. He kissed Teddy again, and Teddy cried helplessly into Harry's mouth as he allowed Harry's knee to grind up between his legs, which slid further apart as he unhinged himself for Harry, like a door opening in Harry's arms.   
  
Harry leaned onto Teddy and let himself be lost to the feeling of Teddy's hot mouth moving down his neck. Teddy was making the sound he'd made the night before, as if what they were doing hurt, just a little. His cock was jabbing into Harry's stomach now, and when Harry groped him through his trousers Teddy gasped and flatted himself against the screened-in wall of the porch.   
  
"I never thought --" Teddy said, his eyes fluttering shut as Harry squeezed his cock. "And then, last night --"   
  
"Shh," Harry said. He glanced over his shoulder; the house was dark and quiet. When he looked back, Teddy's face had hardened.   
  
"You want to fuck me and keep them, too?" Teddy said.   
  
"I don't know what I want," Harry said. His heartbeat hurt; he could barely breathe. Teddy leaned forward and put his mouth just over Harry's, so that their rapid breath felt like a boxing match between wind storms.   
  
"Yes, you do," he said. Teddy sank down to his knees and tore Harry's pyjama bottoms and shorts down in one rough tug. Harry's cock was so hard that it hurt when it bounced in the aftermath, pointing at Teddy's face. Teddy kept his eyes on Harry as he flicked his tongue carefully over the head. Harry swallowed his groan, and it ached to keep it in.   
  
"You want this, don't you?" Teddy asked. He ran his tongue more firmly over the tip of Harry's cock, and Harry saw his precome already leaking onto Teddy's bottom lip. He had to shut his eyes to keep from falling over, everything too sensitive, his mind and his body one dangerously pulsing heartbeat. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had his cock sucked; Ginny found it demeaning. He'd wanted it more than anything ever since that day in Grimmauld Place, and he hadn't known it until now.   
  
"Yes," Harry admitted. "Please."   
  
Teddy grinned up at him. "Are you begging?" he asked.   
  
"Please, yes, I don't care, yes, I'm begging." Harry's jaw was tight and he was trying very hard not to shove forward into Teddy's mouth, which was poised to suck him off, his breath hot and moist on Harry's cock. Teddy ran his tongue around Harry's cockhead in teasing circles and Harry tried to keep his groan internalised, but some of it moved past his lips. He put a hand in Teddy's sandy hair, winding his fingers through it.   
  
"Please," Harry said in a whimper, red with humiliation, and Teddy's face changed. He shut his eyes and slid his lips over Harry's cock, then down the length of it, until he'd almost swallowed it up entirely. Harry tipped his head back and sighed, his grip on Teddy's hair tightening. He wanted to live inside Teddy's sweet, sweltering mouth.   
  
In only five slow passes of Teddy's lips, Harry was nearly ready to explode, and when Teddy reached between Harry's legs to brush light fingertips over his balls, Harry choked in surprise as his orgasm rushed out of him, seeming to stab at him at first, then giving way to the long rolls of pleasure that he had feared he might never feel again. He was hardly conscious until he opened his eyes, looked down and saw Teddy licking his shining lips. He'd swallowed. Harry yanked him up from the floor and kissed him deeply, tasting his own bitterness on Teddy's tongue. It was neither pleasant nor jarring, but it was something he'd never been able to experience before.   
  
"Come here," he said, pulling Teddy over to the couch. Teddy stumbled in Harry's grip, having trouble walking because of his own erection. Harry sat on the couch, in the exact spot where he'd seen Teddy wanking the night before, and pulled Teddy into his lap, Teddy's back snug along Harry's chest. Teddy was trembling as he arched back to mouth at Harry's neck. Harry took Teddy's right leg and looped it over his own, then did the same with his left, so that Teddy was completely spread. He took Teddy's hands, leaned forward, and stuffed them behind his back, pinning them against the couch cushions.   
  
Harry wanted to say something either reassuring or sexy, but he didn't trust his voice and couldn't wait any longer. He unfastened Teddy's trousers and listened as Teddy's panting breath came even faster. He was rock hard and big, almost as big as Harry, though not as thick. Harry's cock twitched to life again as he wrapped his fingers around Teddy's.   
  
"Just relax," Harry said, because Teddy was tense against him and his breath was dangerously wild. "You want me to cast a Concealing Charm?" he asked, thinking that might calm him down.   
  
"No," Teddy said, his voice stronger than Harry had expected. He slumped fully onto Harry and buried his face against Harry's neck, letting out a long breath. Harry began to stroke him, just softly at first, pulling little whimpers from Teddy as he bucked fruitlessly against Harry's hand. Harry spread his own legs wider, opening Teddy's further, and Teddy moaned, lifting his hips as Harry's grip tightened.   
  
"How long?" Harry asked as he reached down to palm Teddy's balls, tickling beneath them as Teddy strained to allow him access. "How long have you been wanking to thoughts of me?"   
  
"Since I learned how to wank," Teddy said, his voice tight and harsh. He turned and sank his teeth into Harry's ear, not hard enough to break the skin, but it hurt. Harry cried out and closed his fist tightly around Teddy's swollen cock. He pumped him hard while Teddy chewed more softly on his earlobe. The rain was quiet now, as if in reverence of two god-like creatures locked in combat. But that was ridiculous: two orphans, two nobodies. That was what they both still were.   
  
"Harry!" Teddy whispered sharply when he came, pushing his face closer to Harry's neck and thrusting up into Harry's hand with pathetic little efforts as his come spilled over Harry's fingers.   
  
"That's right," Harry whispered. He licked Teddy's cheek, feeling insanely possessive and close to losing his mind. "I'm here."   
  
Teddy began to wind down, still huffing every breath and his cock still dribbling a bit. Harry released Teddy's hands and pulled his wand from the pocket of his pyjama pants. He cast the spell to clean Teddy, speaking softly and with care. He wanted it to feel good, a gentle cleansing rather than the harsh scrubbing the same spell could sometimes produce. Teddy was slack and flushed in Harry's arms, and Harry didn't want to let him go. He grabbed Teddy's right leg and turned Teddy's whole body until his feet were tucked up onto the couch and his cheek was resting against Harry's chest. Teddy curled against him gratefully, tucking his arm around Harry's side, and only then did Harry cast a Concealing Charm around them. He felt confident for the first time in awhile that his spells would do the job he meant them to.   
  
They didn't speak; Harry couldn't imagine what more they could say. He smoothed Teddy's hair and Teddy tipped his face up, wanting to be kissed. Harry wanted nothing more himself, content even to let the beginnings of his renewed erection soften in favour of sleepily kissing Teddy, both of their mouths wet and swollen. Every breath of Teddy's seemed like a miracle against Harry's, and Harry realised that he wasn't just having a sexual identity crisis, he was actually falling in love with Teddy, the one person he had so far failed to save. He wrapped Teddy in closer and kissed him more softly. Teddy allowed his eyes to open just a bit.   
  
"We should meet here every night," Teddy whispered. Harry smiled. The little orphan, wanting everything pinned down, scheduled and agreed upon, knowing how easily it could all disappear.   
  
"I won't be able to wait until tomorrow night," Harry said. Teddy grinned, and Harry stroked his face. "We'll find some way to sneak off together."   
  
Teddy shut his eyes and pressed his face to Harry's chest again. Harry tickled his fingers up and down the back of Teddy's neck and began to think rationally. Where on God's earth could this lead but to epic disaster? Still, he couldn't bring himself to let Teddy go. He was in limbo, unable to decide which felt more ridiculous: the beggar's life he could hardly imagine with Teddy, or the one he'd been living for the past twenty-five years.   
  
*   
  
The rain stopped the next morning, mercifully. It was still overcast and windy outside, but Harry used the break in the rainfall as excuse to go out early and walk alone on the beach. There was a small, rocky island just off the coast, about one hundred feet out. Harry thought about swimming to it and exploring it, and then of just Apparating there with Teddy. He looked back to the house and saw Ron walking toward him, looking half-asleep and wearing a ratty old jumper that his mum had probably made for him. He was strangely sentimental about the homemade jumpers now, despite being able to afford the finest robes on his Auror's salary.   
  
"You're up early," Harry said when Ron came to stand beside him. He was pale and bleary-eyed, and Harry could guess that Hermione had sent him out after Harry when she'd seen him walking down the stairs past their bedroom.   
  
"So are you," Ron said, crossing his arms over his chest. "This weather's for the fucking birds, eh?"   
  
"Sorry I dragged you along."   
  
"That's alright, mate. I'm having a good time. Uh, are you?"   
  
"Yeah," Harry said, grinning and sincere. He had stayed on the sofa with Teddy for hours the night before, kissing him and watching him drift to sleep, then waking him with more kisses, unable to stop himself. He was terrified to learn that he was capable of such a self-destructive love, but it filled him with childish hope all the same. Teddy was still in bed, and just the prospect of laying eyes on him later made Harry feel light enough to float. Ron gave him a look of concern.   
  
"Hermione's worried about you," he said.   
  
"What else is new?"   
  
"I'm a little worried, too," Ron said, and Harry could guess that Ron was more worried about his sister and his niece and nephews than Harry. He'd always trusted Harry to take care of himself, and that was exactly what Harry had done the night before with Teddy, and what he would damn well do again as soon as he got the chance. He hadn't figured out how to reconcile taking care of himself with taking care of his family, but he had done enough sacrificing and where had it got him?   
  
"What do you want?" Harry asked. "Ginny and I are adults. We have occasional disagreements."   
  
"Hermione and I have disagreements every two minutes or so, but that's part of the fun, you shout them out. Seems as if, well, that is, Hermione thinks maybe you and Ginny aren't talking much."   
  
"Hermione is wrong," Harry said, irritated by the fact that she was actually right, as always. "Yes, Ron, it's possible."   
  
"I know that! I'm just – well, for the past couple of years, you and Ginny –"   
  
"Have I got a sign on my head that says corner me and assign me emotional problems?" Harry asked sharply. "I wonder why I'm the only one getting this attention, yeah? Nobody asks Albus why he's afraid of everything or you why you get drunk every night. Nobody asks Teddy why he's so unhappy."   
  
"I don't get drunk," Ron said, frowning. "I'm on holiday, I have a few pints – and if you're wondering why Teddy Lupin is unhappy, well, same reason he's always been. He's determined to be, you know that."   
  
"Why must you all call him Teddy _Lupin_?" Harry asked. "As if you don't know him."   
  
"Because we don't!" Ron said. "All I know about him is that he nearly drove my niece to suicide."   
  
"Oh, please, that was only a bid for attention, and it was hardly Teddy's fault, he just had a hard -  
  
time coming to terms with the fact that he's gay."   
  
"Sure, fine, but he didn't have to drag Victoire along while he was on his quest for self-discovery," Ron said, frowning. He shook his head. "I never understood why you were so determined to manufacture a relationship with that boy."   
  
"Ugh, God!" Harry said, miming a shudder. "It unnerves me when I hear you repeat Hermione's words verbatim, you know?"   
  
"Who said I was!"   
  
"You don't think I can tell? When's the last time you talked about 'manufacturing' anything?"   
  
Ron grinned and shoved Harry. Normally Harry was relieved when his shouting matches with his best mate dissipated into friendly joking, but at the moment he was aggravated by Ron's refusal to take him seriously. He kicked a spray of pebbles into the waves.   
  
"Hey, c'mon," Ron said. "Help me make breakfast for the kids."   
  
Harry was set to refuse, but he considered the possibility of serving Teddy hot pasties and coffee while his own children sat obliviously by. One big happy family. It was a term that had been bandied about quite a lot when the famous Harry Potter and Hermione Granger both married into the Weasley family. Teddy was of course never mentioned in these articles, though Harry had become his legal guardian when Andromeda died nine years ago.   
  
Back at the house, the children were just beginning to stumble out of their bedrooms, the girls first, then Albus, already trailing his mother with complaints that some book of his that had been magicked to reveal over a million different possible endings depending upon the reader's selection was stuck on the ending where the hero got eaten by a pack of rabid shrews and he couldn't achieve another ending no matter how he directed the story.   
  
"Maybe it's a gag book," Ron said. "Sounds like the kind of thing George would design: the inevitable shrews!"   
  
Hermione laughed and touched Ron's shoulder as she moved through the room, smiling down at him as if he was very clever. This irritated Harry for some reason.   
  
"No, I've had it for months and it used to give me different endings," Albus said, humourless as ever. James and Hugo appeared, and James swatted Albus on the back of his head as he passed.   
  
"Maybe you've ticked it off," James said, going for a pot of coffee on the counter. "Maybe it's got tired of you making the hero undress and dance for you."   
  
Harry waited for Albus to snarl and fly at James with his fists, but instead he got up and -  
  
walked sullenly from the room, clutching his book while Hugo laughed uproariously at James' joke and Ginny scowled at Harry, expecting him to scold James.   
  
"Hey," Harry said, and James turned from the coffee, his smile draining. "Don't be a prat."   
  
"C'mon, Dad," James said. He sat beside Harry at the table. "Admit it was funny."   
  
"You're so cruel!" Ginny said, glowering at James. "Don't you know how sensitive Albus is?"   
  
"How could he forget with you reminding him every ten minutes?" someone said from the top of the stairs.   
  
Everyone turned to the stairway, where Teddy was lurking, barefoot and shirtless in only pyjama bottoms. Harry swallowed heavily. Ginny was staring at Teddy as if she didn't even know how to begin to rebuke him for that remark.   
  
"Excuse me," she said, straightening. "But no one asked for Teddy Lupin's commentary on the situation."   
  
"Yes, no one ever does," Teddy said lightly. He walked into the room and surveyed the breakfast that Ron had begun to prepare, the ingredients laid out on the kitchen counter. "Do you want some help?" Teddy asked.   
  
"Sure, mate." Ron seemed baffled by the offer. "I was going to do potatoes and bacon, tomatoes, you know, the works."   
  
"The works," Teddy said. "Have you got eggs?"   
  
"Yes," Ron said. " _Accio_ —"   
  
"Don't you dare!" Hermione shrieked. " _Accio_ e-g-g-s? Really, Ron, have you forgotten what happened last time you tried that?"   
  
There was much laughter as the Weasley family recalled this hilarious mishap, and Hugo stood in the middle of the room retelling it while Hermione shook her head and smiled. Harry ignored them and watched Teddy working at the counter. In just a few minutes he had turned Ron's sloppy breakfast into some type of delicious-smelling casserole with several different cheeses bubbling on top. He quietly went about arranging slices on plates and used his wand to distribute them around the kitchen. Only Harry's plate teetered dangerously; the others landed without incident. Harry caught his plate and steadied it, then looked up at Teddy, who was staring at him. Teddy smiled, a tiny, secret thing, and Harry beamed at him. The sight of Teddy without his shirt was enough to make Harry half-hard under the table, though his naked chest was soft and unremarkable. Harry began plotting how they would escape the others as he dug into the casserole, which was excellent.   
  
-"You're quite a chef!" Hermione said to Teddy, who was eating his own portion while standing at the counter. "Who taught you to cook?"   
  
"My gran," Teddy said. "She used to say that she was the only Black who ever bothered to learn how to cook for herself."   
  
"We never cook at home," Lily said. "The house elf does all of that."   
  
"He has a name, Lil," Harry said. She shrugged and went back to eating.   
  
Ginny walked back into the kitchen, her face pinched with irritation. She sniffed the air and frowned in the direction of the casserole, which was nearly gone, as Hugo and James had both managed third helpings by that point.   
  
"Ron, what have you done?" she asked. "You know I don't eat eggs."   
  
"Oh, sorry," Teddy said. "No one told me."   
  
Ginny looked at Harry as if this was a real betrayal, and then stalked from the room. Harry's throat tightened with anxiety as he scraped the last bits of his breakfast on to his fork. He could feel Hermione burning a hole in his head.   
  
"I think I'm going to pop down to the market and restock the groceries," Harry said, levitating his plate to the sink. "Anyone want to join me?"   
  
"Ginny might want to," Hermione said. "She was talking about wanting an avocado."   
  
"I'll come," Teddy said. "I've got a few things I want to pick up. I'll get some avocados for Ginny," he added, looking back at Hermione. She smiled tightly.   
  
"How kind of you," she said as Teddy and Harry headed for the stairs.   
  
*   
  
They side-along Apparated to the rocky little island off the coast as soon as they were out of sight of the rental. Harry landed hard on its sloping left side, scraping his hands on some loose rocks and foliage. Teddy was on his arse beside him, struggling for traction. Harry took Teddy's hand and wordlessly led him around to the back of the tiny island, which was hidden from the shoreline of Kokari. It looked out toward Turkey, which would have been visible but for the fog.   
  
"Did you sleep well?" Harry asked when they were installed on flat rock that jutted out from the side of the island and provided a cosy balcony. Teddy laughed at the question and fell on Harry, kissing him nosily, seemingly thrilled with the chance to be able to moan at full volume. Harry was grateful for it himself, and he let Teddy push him down onto his back and scramble atop him as they licked and nipped at each other furiously. Harry pushed his hands up underneath -  
  
the t-shirt Teddy had put on before they left the house and sighed with charged-up contentment at the warmth of Teddy's smooth skin. Teddy sat up on his elbows and smiled down at Harry, his body spread apart and his cock snug over Harry's, which was nearly full already.   
  
"I fucking love thinking of this when we're around them," Teddy said. "Don't you?"   
  
Harry knew Teddy was talking about his family, and he blanched a bit. Everything was so new, of course he loved all of it, but it was horribly awkward and dangerous for Harry, having Ginny and Hermione skirting the edges of his burgeoning romance.   
  
"What you made to eat was brilliant," Harry said, avoiding the question. "You're really talented."   
  
"Yes, I'm nearly on the level of a house elf."   
  
"That's quite a compliment coming from Hermione, you know," Harry said, trying to make a joke of it, but Teddy didn't smile.   
  
"I'm sure they all look at me as a kind of charity, like their beloved elves," Teddy said. He leaned beside Harry, his head propped up by his elbow and his t-shirt twisted.   
  
"You could work if you liked," Harry said, a bit irritated by Teddy's petulance. "I could get you any position you wanted, just name it."   
  
"That's disgusting," Teddy said. "Installing your loved ones in comfortable jobs, calling in favours –"   
  
"That's not what I mean at all." Harry put a hand on Teddy's side, already terrified that this could end, that he wouldn't be able to mend what was broken in Teddy and would only offend him in his feeble efforts. "I only mean that I would trust you to do well if you really put your energy into something."   
  
"Good," Teddy said. He grabbed Harry's shoulders and rolled on top of him again, pinning him. "So lie back and let me show you that I can." He kissed Harry so hard that Harry groped for his wand and blindly cast a softening spell on the rock, the back of his head already sore. Teddy found this hilarious.   
  
"They didn't teach you this at Hogwarts?" Harry asked as they sank into the newly cushioned surface.   
  
"They did," Teddy said. "I just never had cause to use it before. I haven't had a lot of secret outdoor shags."   
  
"Is that what we're doing?" Harry asked, his pulse quickening. Teddy sat up and pushed his messy hair away from his forehead.   
  
"I want you to fuck me so hard they'll hear my screams on the shore," Teddy said.   
  
Harry was stuck by this as if by a blunt object, surprised with himself. He wanted it, badly, to drive into Teddy until he was weak with exhaustion and could do nothing but cling to Harry desperately in the aftermath. He sat up onto his knees and pulled Teddy up with him, yanking at Teddy's trousers. He was so hard inside them that it must have been painful; Harry released Teddy's cock from his shorts and stroked it, staring down at the mesmerizing sight of it in his hand, hard and flushed pink, perfect-straight. Teddy let out a choppy breath and steadied himself on Harry's shoulders.   
  
"You're beautiful," Harry said, looking up at Teddy. It seemed a ridiculous thing to say, but why should it? It was true: Teddy's skin was so rosy and warm, his eyes were so open, bright and dark in the same moment. Teddy shook his head.   
  
"I'm war trash," he said.   
  
"So am I," Harry said. He crushed his mouth against Teddy's and swallowed Teddy's broken little groan, pulling harder on Teddy's cock. He reached around Teddy to push his trousers down to his knees, and cupped one arse cheek in each hand. Teddy's face was pressed to Harry's, his eyelids fluttering and his breath so hot on Harry's mouth.   
  
"You've never been with a man, have you?" Teddy asked.   
  
"No," Harry said. "I guess that's what you are, isn't it? A man. You still seem like a boy to me."   
  
"I am," Teddy said, nodding furiously. "Yours."   
  
Harry pushed Teddy onto his back and bent down to lick his balls and then up along the shaft of his cock. Teddy moaned weakly and reached down to take hold of his legs, one hand under each knee. He pulled them back, exposing the secret skin under his balls and the pink dimple of his arsehole. Harry took his cue and licked the long, hairless strip of skin down to just above the wrinkled pucker of Teddy's arse. He knew what Teddy wanted; he'd heard about this, of course.   
  
"Have you cleaned yourself for me?" Harry asked, placing the flat of his thumb over Teddy's entrance. Teddy shook his head sheepishly, his face turning red. Harry took his wand from his trouser pocket and sucked in a deep breath. He imagined that this had to be one of the most intimate spells one wizard could perform on another, and of course he'd never tried it before, though really it was the same as the basic cleaning spell. He put the tip of his wand very gently against Teddy's dark, grasping entrance. Teddy was trembling, and Harry could barely breathe; their eyes met and Harry felt something well beyond the obscenity of their current postures pass between them. It was almost a physical pain, both of them knowing already how vulnerable they were making themselves to each other.   
  
"Do it," Teddy said, his voice rough with embarrassment and his flush spreading down to his naked chest. Harry nodded.   
  
" _Tergeo_ ," he said, struggling to keep his hand steady and his voice clear. The spell came out a bit too strong, and Teddy shuddered as it spread over him, cleaning him both inside and out.   
  
"Fuck," he exhaled, shutting his eyes and letting his limbs sink down as if Harry had stolen his bones.   
  
"I'm sorry," Harry said. "I've never --"   
  
"No, it felt really good." Teddy leaned up a little bit to smile at Harry. "And I've never, either. I've never had someone try that on me."   
  
"Oh, is it not done? Sorry, it just seemed logical --"   
  
Teddy laughed, and Harry sat back, embarrassed, his erection beginning to sag against the gravity of the moment. Teddy sat up and crawled into Harry's lap to kiss him, and Harry wrapped Teddy into his arms, enjoying the feeling of being clothed while Teddy was completely exposed. He leaned forward until he was crouched over Teddy, who was on his back again, smelling like he'd just come out of a basket of washed linens. Harry kissed him everywhere, moving down his neck to his shoulders, which were tanned despite the dismal summer, then to his collarbone and his chest. He paused to bite at Teddy's nipples, because apparently that was done, this much he knew, and he understood the appeal of it immediately when Teddy squirmed with laughter and yelped in pain in the same breath.   
  
By the time he'd reached Teddy's cock it was already leaking, and Harry licked the unpleasantly lukewarm precome from Teddy's slit, making him moan and deflate the way the cleaning spell had. Harry lifted Teddy's knees again and tilted him back, licking down over his balls, then lower.   
  
"Oh, God, Harry." Teddy was constantly chanting a string of some combination of those three words, thrashing a bit as he did, but he went silent and still at the first flick of Harry's tongue across his arsehole.   
  
"Good?" Harry asked, nervous. Teddy nodded dreamily, his eyes half-shut.   
  
"I never even had the nerve to imagine," Teddy said, his voice a low drone, as if all of his energy was in use and basic functions like speech were a strain. "To imagine you, you doing, oh, yes, yeah, that's, _yeah_."   
  
Teddy tasted like the purest essence of his sweet, fragrant skin. Harry shut his eyes and appreciated his own spell work as he licked deeper into the heat of Teddy's body. Maybe he should have been a janitor; his cleaning could put Filch's squibbish efforts to shame. He had to hold down a laugh at the thought.   
  
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Apparently Teddy only knew one word now. Harry sat back and licked him in a wide sweep, from one cheek to the other, his tongue just teasing across Teddy's -  
  
entrance. Teddy moaned in something like complaint and appreciation. He looked up at Harry through slitted eyes, and Harry smiled at him. Teddy's cock was so hard that the whole lower half of his body was rigid in response, as if he was struggling to prop up the weight of it.   
  
"Want to come?" Harry asked, running his thumb softly along the underside of Teddy's cock. Teddy jerked his hips up in response and let his head loll back onto the rock again.   
  
"Not until you're in me," he said.   
  
Harry lubricated himself hastily, and this spell was less elegant, leaving behind a mess of overenthusiastic slickness that smelled of moss and cinnamon. Teddy was ready and waiting, holding the backs of his knees again. Harry sat back and distributed the lubricant carefully over himself, enjoying the sight of Teddy, who was panting and waiting for him, trembling with anticipation.   
  
"Will you scream my name?" Harry asked. Ginny never did.   
  
"Depends," Teddy said, sighing impatiently. "Will you pound my arse until I can't stop myself?”  
  
Harry answered that by moving between Teddy's legs, his own erection heavy enough to make him feel half-crippled. He brought his slicked fingers to Teddy's entrance and tickled him there, watching as Teddy's face twitched in something like surprise and then relaxed completely as Harry's finger pressed into him, just the fingertip at first.   
  
"Yeah," Teddy said, breathing the word out as if it had been strangling him and now he was free of it. His tight arse spasmed around Harry's finger, making Harry's vision blur.   
  
"Is this okay?" Harry asked as his finger slipped in deeper, easily, though Teddy felt so tight that Harry could hardly imagine his cock replacing his finger and stretching Teddy to bursting. Still, he wanted nothing more than to sink into Teddy wholly and feel every tiny jerk and twitch as he took Harry in, allowing him access, opening for him. Harry felt woozy for a moment and braced himself against the softened rock with his other hand.   
  
"It's good," Teddy said, his eyes shut and his mouth wet. Harry wanted to lean forward to kiss him, but he was afraid to move. All of his senses were so heightened that the whole world seemed to buzz into obscurity around him, the rock and the island and the sea all long gone, forget about more intangible concepts such as his marriage.   
  
"I don't think I can wait any longer," Harry said, panting helplessly, his finger stuffed all the way inside Teddy, who was still squeezing around it in slow, seemingly involuntary spasms.   
  
"Me either," Teddy said. He opened his eyes and Harry just stared at him for a moment, bared for Harry and so hard for him, a thin stream of precome stretching all the way from the tip of his cock and pooling on his stomach.   
  
Harry withdrew his finger and leaned over Teddy, flattening his palms on either side of his Teddy's chest. The rock was soft beneath them but it still had enough firmness to provide traction, and Harry needed it badly, because he was a trembling mess and he wasn't even sure he'd be able to get his cock into Teddy before he came all over both of them.   
  
"I might not be good," Harry said. "Remember, it's my first time."   
  
Teddy grinned; he almost looked sleepy, sated despite the fact that his erection had grown so hard and full that Harry knew he must be hurting for release. He reached up and stroked Harry's cheek softly, as if Harry were a boy who needed comforting.   
  
"You always seem so worried," Teddy said, his voice a small thing that seemed to come from very deep within him. "Don't you know how perfect you are?"   
  
Harry had been called many things, but no one had ever spoken of him with the kind of bare sincerity that Teddy had. Harry shook his head.   
  
"How can I be perfect when I've disappointed you so?" He would never forget that comment, however much of Teddy he could save. There were some things that would always haunt him, and Teddy finally telling him the truth about Andromeda, about what Harry had allowed him to endure, was one of them.   
  
"Perfect people have got to be disappointing," Teddy said. "It's a rule. Now please, Harry, please. I want you inside me. I think I'll die of it, I want it so much."   
  
"Asking to be saved?" Harry said. He leaned down to kiss Teddy. His mouth was so wet and swollen from Harry's previous efforts that it felt like kissing just the warm, soft idea of a mouth.   
  
"Or killed," Teddy said. He grunted sharply when Harry's stomach brushed over the wet tip of his cock. "Anything."   
  
Harry slid into Teddy at last, and they both sighed heavily in relief. Teddy put his hands on Harry's sides as Harry inched in deeper, taking his time. He kept his eyes on Teddy's face, watching for cues. Teddy was breathing in great gulps, and his eyes were wet at the corners.   
  
"Teddy," Harry said in a whisper as he slipped the last of himself into Teddy, his balls resting against the warmth of Teddy's spread-open arse, which seemed almost cold compared to the intensity of the heat inside Teddy's body. "You, you're so, so --"   
  
"Don't talk," Teddy said. His voice was tight, and Harry bent down to kiss him on the lips, just once and quickly. "Don't say anything."   
  
Teddy reached up and carefully removed Harry's glasses. Harry was going to protest; he wanted to be able to see Teddy clearly, he wanted to see everything. Teddy reached for the shirt he had tossed onto the rock and carefully rubbed the glasses clean, removing a thin layer of fog that had gathered across the lenses either from the heat of Harry's face or Teddy's body. Harry was perfectly still as Teddy replaced them on his face.   
  
"Please," Teddy whispered, reaching up to grip Harry's arms above his elbows. Harry knew what he was asking for.   
  
He moved into Teddy with terrified tenderness until Teddy ground up against him, begging for more. Harry sat back on his knees, grabbed Teddy's hips and hoisted him up so that his body was tilted at an angle. When Teddy gurgled in wordless encouragement Harry began to drive into him, watching Teddy's face pinch up as his cries turned to shouts and then to screams. Every word out of Teddy's mouth was Harry's name, but it sounded different each time he said it, as if Teddy was speaking in another language, the one he'd been inventing for Harry all along, in secret, wanting this excuse to speak it.   
  
Harry said nothing, in awe as his orgasm rushed through him. He'd never been so aware of every piercing pulse of feeling as his climax seemed to move from some invisible seat of his body and into his balls, clenching there for half an excruciating second before it poured up the length of his cock and finally left him. Harry bent down to Teddy's chest and shouted wordlessly as he filled Teddy's arse with his come. Teddy's fingers were digging into Harry's arms, nails biting skin as Teddy arched back, seemingly determined to take in the full force of Harry's orgasm as deeply as possible. He was groaning and so tight, his cock purple with blood and leaking steadily. Harry was half out of his mind in the aftermath, shuddering his breath rather than exhaling it, but he still had the wherewithal to reach for Teddy's cock and pump it with his shaking hand. Teddy was still recovering from Harry's final thrust, and Harry was still inside him. They held each other's gaze while Teddy gasped for breath and Harry rubbed his thumb in tight circles over the wet slit of Teddy's cock.   
  
"Harry," Teddy said, this time in two syllables, his voice so pinched his accent almost went cockney. Then he shuddered and arched back again, his arse squeezing Harry's cock as his orgasm ripped through him. Harry groaned, so oversensitive that it hurt, and he kissed Teddy hard on the mouth, holding Teddy's head in his hands as Teddy's come landed hotly against Harry's chest. Teddy reached up to grab Harry's ears, and they both held on tight, panting against each other's mouths when they were too breathless and disoriented to even maintain the kiss.   
  
"Fuck," Teddy whispered, his eyes still shut. Harry was afraid to move; he never wanted whatever had just happened to end. It hadn't just been sex, or sex with a man, or even sex with someone he loved madly and suddenly and in a way that frightened him deeply. It was more than that; it was something he would never be able to put words to. He felt healed of a crippling illness he'd never known he had, and it wasn't the orgasm, it wasn't even Teddy's damp body shivering under his as Harry slowly slid out of him. It was monstrous and wonderful, something that would change everything.   
  
Harry felt the wind on his back as he hovered over Teddy, kissing his face. Teddy finally opened his eyes, just a little, his lashes still netted together. He touched Harry's side tentatively, as if they were strangers again.   
  
"I think there's a storm coming," Harry said, hating this irrelevant observation, but he had nowhere near the talent with words to verbalise anything that would properly follow what had just taken place between them. The wind was whipping in stronger and he heard thunder blowing in from out over the sea.   
  
"Yes," Teddy said. He seemed delirious. Harry nuzzled his face, feeling ridiculous. Teddy hadn't shaved since the previous day and he was a bit rough against Harry's cheek. He pulled Harry down to him and cradled Harry's head against his chest as Harry stretched out alongside him, letting out his breath. He was suddenly painfully aware of his own nakedness. He still had his socks on; how had he overlooked that?   
  
"We should get back." Harry knew that was the wrong thing to say, but what was the alternative? Already he could feel the first tiny drops of rain on his bare skin, and the thunder was gathering in closer, rumbling louder.   
  
"I want to stay here and talk for awhile," Teddy said. Harry allowed himself to experience the panic that followed rather than pushing it away: the others would be wondering why he'd taken so long at the market. Maybe they would even go looking for him and learn from one of the clerks that he'd never come. He could have Teddy or his family, but Teddy didn't seem willing to let him keep both. And why should he be? Harry sat up.   
  
"Talk about what?" he said. "We'll get wet."   
  
"I could do a water-proofing charm on you," Teddy said. He looked like a ghost, suddenly, very pale against the rock despite his sun-conditioned skin.   
  
"Did I hurt you?" Harry asked, stroking his hand down Teddy's chest. He could feel heavier raindrops smacking his shoulders now, and he saw lightening flashing somewhere, out of the corner of his eye.   
  
"No," Teddy said. He sat up and grabbed Harry's shoulder in a way that startled him. "Not yet."   
  
"Come on, Teddy, we'll be soaked, or worse. It's dangerous, there's lightning. Later we'll talk, we'll meet on the porch --"   
  
"I'm not a child," Teddy said sharply. "Not anymore."   
  
"I know that." Harry kissed him to shut him up, and handed him his clothes. "Here," he said softly. Teddy wilted a little, looking down at the rumpled shirt and trousers Harry had placed in his lap. "Before they get wet. C'mon, there you are."   
  
They Apparated to the market and hurriedly gathered supplies for the night's dinner as the rain drew closer to the island and the witches and wizards who ran the little stalls in Kokari's version of Diagon Alley began to pack up their things before the storm arrived. Teddy did not forget Ginny's avocados, and Harry was filled with overwhelming love for him as he watched him sullenly selecting them from a barrel. He walked from a display of dried vampire root and stood behind Teddy, placing a hand lightly on his back. Teddy paused, an avocado in his hand, and turned to look at Harry over his shoulder.   
  
"I wish it was just the two of us here," Harry whispered in Teddy's ear. He knew he was being reckless; even in Greece, people would recognise him in wizarding markets. He didn't care. "I wish we could go back to our bed and nap and talk and listen to the storm. It would sound so different, don't you think? If we were here together, alone?"   
  
"I would make you dinner." Teddy turned to smile at him. "We would get drunk and have sex on the floor by the fireplace."   
  
Harry grinned and touched Teddy's bottom lip with two fingers, just quickly. When he stepped away he saw the stooped old witch who ran the produce stand glowering at him with suspicion. She said something in Greek and Harry nodded as if he understood before pressing seven sickles into her palm.   
  
"It could be like that, you know," Teddy said as they walked back to the rental. Harry wanted to Apparate, impatient to return to the safety of the lie that was his life, but Teddy had insisted on walking. The thunder was threatening overhead, and Harry could hear the rain begin, approaching them steadily.   
  
"It could be just the two of us," Teddy said, too loudly, competing with the sound of the storm. They had come to the base of the rental, which towered over them like a warden. Harry pulled Teddy under the overhang of the first floor porch as the rain caught up with them.   
  
"I know," Harry said. He gave Teddy a squeeze that seemed rather condescending in hindsight and wished he could take it back. "Just give me some time. To think. It's only been two days."   
  
Teddy grunted in annoyance and looked out at the rain that was slamming the pavement. Lightning flashed over the sea, close to the island where they'd forgotten to undo the softening spell on that rock. It would wear off on its own, but Harry was bothered by this carelessness, and he imagined someone discovering it, stained with come and marked by hand prints, and knowing exactly what had transpired upon it.   
  
"It's been longer than two days for me," Teddy said. He pulled himself from Harry's grip and went up the narrow stairs to the first floor, the bag of avocados swinging in his hand. If Harry was honest with himself, he had been heading toward this conclusion for much longer than two days himself. It felt like the realization of some great destiny, more so than anything he'd done as a teenager. All of that had been ordained outside of him, and he had simply been a pawn, pushed from one trial to the next. Now, whatever he did to fulfil his destiny would be on his shoulders alone. No one but Teddy would force him to confront the horror of changing his life. Leaving his family. His stomach dropped and the bag of sundries in his hand seemed to grow very heavy. He felt as if he'd been on a Muggle carnival ride for the past two days, spinning in such frantic, happy circles that he couldn't think straight and only remembered himself when he caught the briefest flashes of his normal life as he spun wildly past it.

*

Inside the rental, things were loud and busy as usual. Hugo had overdosed on Fizzing Whizbees and was floating around the second floor living room, laughing hysterically while Ron batted at him, trying to get him down and laughing quite a lot himself. Hermione was at the Floo speaking to someone from work and shouting over her shoulder for Ron and Hugo to be quiet as the face in the fire stared out at her gravely. James was sitting on the stairs that led up to the kitchen, drinking a butterbeer. Harry went to sit beside him, guiltily. He thought, as soon as he sat down, that he should have had a shower first.   
  
"Where's your mum?" Harry asked. He took the butterbeer from James and had a pull of it.   
  
"Dunno," James said. "Did you two get caught in the storm?"   
  
Harry's face burned, and he couldn't meet James' eyes. He watched as Ron finally tackled Hugo to the ground and was lifted several inches off the floor himself, as if Hugo was a hot air balloon that he'd put his arms around.   
  
"We just missed it," Harry said. "The market was crowded," he added, though James hadn't asked what took them so long.   
  
"Albus is still in a snit," James said. "I like that word, don't you? Snit!"   
  
"Yes, it's a good one," Harry said, smiling. "Be kind to your brother, won't you? He's going through a hard time. If you'd have known me at fifteen you would have loathed me entirely."   
  
"I doubt it," James said. He seemed scandalised by the idea. Harry patted his back.   
  
"All I mean is that I was a bit of an -- emotional boy myself."   
  
"That's not what my school books say. They say you were steely and resigned, like someone four -  
  
times your age."   
  
"Yes, well. Those books were not written by me, as you know."   
  
"You should write a book, Dad! Think of how it would sell!"   
  
"I'm not much of a writer." It wasn't as if the idea hadn't been put to him by twelve different publishing houses over the years. He had never seriously considered it. He didn't like thinking about that time in his life, however glorious it seemed in retrospect. He still had nightmares about Cedric's death, and about finding Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets not just weak but long gone, skeletal and decomposing.   
  
"You could get someone to write it for you," James said. "Maybe Aunt Hermione."   
  
"She's a bit busy, I think," Harry said. Teddy came up the stairs and a charge that slapped Harry like a thunderclap passed between them when their eyes met. He glanced at James, but he didn't seem to have noticed.   
  
"'Ey, Teddy," James said, waving him over. "Don't you think my dad should write a book about his life?"   
  
Teddy glanced at Harry. His hair was damp and his clothes were fresh; he must have showered. Harry swayed as he looked up at Teddy, whose eyes seemed like the only light left in the world.   
  
"It might be good," Teddy said. "To tell your side of the story."   
  
"I don't like talking about myself," Harry said. "Or writing about myself."   
  
James sighed, impatient with his father's usual reticence, and leaned back on the stairs. He tilted his head to look at Teddy.   
  
"Are you going to cook for us again tonight?" he asked. Teddy smiled a little, then shrugged. "You ought to," James said. "If you want. That thing you made this morning was brilliant."   
  
"I'm glad you liked it," Teddy said. "I was actually just on my way up to the kitchen to get started on dinner, unless someone else is planning on cooking?" He looked to Harry as if he was the maintainer of the cooking schedule.   
  
"I'm sure whoever was up next will be happy to have the night off," Harry said.   
  
"Oh, we're in your way," James said, hopping up. "Of course, you could have Apparated," he teased as Teddy jogged up the stairs.   
  
"Why don't you come help me?" Teddy asked, turning back. Harry realised with some alarm that he was speaking to James. "You'll be graduating next year, you'll need to learn how to -  
  
use your wand for more than sobering charms."   
  
"Okay," James said, following him. Harry wasn't sure why, but he wanted to protest. He watched them walk up to the kitchen together, and was a bit miffed when Teddy didn't turn back to offer him a conspiratorial wink. He thought of following them, but why? What was he afraid of, Teddy blurting out the details of his afternoon on the island with Harry? He would never be so cruel. Maybe he was jealous that Teddy had invited James and not him. He snorted with laughter at the idea.   
  
"Blimey!" Hugo shouted, finally wrestled to the ground by Ron, who was red-faced with laughter and out of breath. "If it's still raining tomorrow I'm doing that again!"   
  
"You're not," Ron said, standing up with a groan. Hugo rose just a few inches off the floor and lingered there, the effects of the Fizzing Whizbees wearing off.   
  
"But he's got a point, Harry," Ron said. "This weather is pure shit."   
  
"That's my fault?" Harry said, more sharply than he'd intended. Ron frowned and laughed.   
  
"No," he said, but for some reason Harry still felt as if he'd been accused of something or other as he stalked out of the room.   
  
*  
  
  
Dinner that evening was delicious, of course, some sort of South American dish that used most of the avocados. Teddy had spent his gap year in Chile and Argentina, apparently. Harry was embarrassed to learn this only now. A whole year without hearing from Teddy, and he'd hardly noticed. Now he was prone to panic when Teddy disappeared for a few moments to retrieve something from his room.   
  
"There aren't a lot of careers for wizards that involve cooking, are there?" Ginny said at dinner. She'd praised the food along with everyone else and had also been drinking quite a lot. So had Harry. Ron was abstaining, probably trying to prove a point. Harry pretended not to notice.   
  
"I don't know," Teddy said. He wasn't drinking much himself. "I'm not particularly interested in a career."   
  
"And how is that going to work?" Ginny asked. Everyone at the table, even Lily, even Hugo, could hear the rest of the question though she did not voice it aloud. _Are you going to live off of Harry's generosity for the rest of your life, then?_   
  
Teddy shrugged as if this question wasn't worthy of a response. Harry couldn't resist checking -  
  
Hermione's face, and of course she was frowning the way she did when she was struggling to ascertain the ingredients of a potion.   
  
"It's a trend now, actually," Hermione said. "Wizards cooking at the pricier restaurants rather than elves. Some of them are considered celebrities."   
  
"That's the last thing I want to be," Teddy said.   
  
"Hear, hear," Harry muttered, and everyone looked at him. He refilled his wine glass.   
  
"Well, I suppose that's a trend as well," Hermione said snottily. "Not to have any ambitions."   
  
"Hear, hear!" Hugo said, and everyone but Hermione laughed.   
  
"Teddy will figure things out," Ron said, rubbing at the back of Hermione's neck. She sat up very straight and rolled her eyes at him.   
  
"You sound just like your father," she said.   
  
After dinner, Harry wandered into his bedroom and poked about aimlessly, yawning and thinking about where he and Teddy might sneak to later that evening. The porch was really too dangerous, unless he cast a proper Concealing Charm, and even then the seams of such things could be detected by shrewd witches such as Hermione. Or Ginny.   
  
The bedroom door opened and Ginny began to walk in, but she froze when she saw Harry. Trying to conceal her surprise at finding him in their bedroom, she moved inside and closed the door behind her.   
  
"Are you getting ready for bed?" she asked. "It's so early. And why haven't you put any lights on?" She used her wand to light a lamp on the bureau. Harry sat on the bed and watched her stand before the mirror to brush her hair.   
  
"Is Albus alright?" he asked. "He was quiet at dinner."   
  
"Isn't he always? He's fine, you worry about him too much."   
  
" _I_ do?"   
  
"Oh, Harry." Ginny shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She put the brush down on the bureau. "Let's not even speak if we're only going to end up fighting."   
  
"I'm sorry. Sorry." He didn't know what else to say.   
  
"Does Teddy expect that we'll support him for the rest of his life?" she asked, turning to Harry.   
  
"I thought we weren't speaking."   
  
"You're not bothered by this?"   
  
Harry groaned and leaned back onto the bed. He shut his eyes and wondered what Teddy was doing; washing up? He'd done a lot for the family as a boy, minding the younger children and opening fan mail for Harry so that he could be read the most amusing or moving letters. When Harry thought of Teddy eagerly volunteering for this job as a twelve year old boy his heart ached, and it seemed unbearable that Teddy wasn't lying beside him, curled up with his head resting on Harry's shoulder. He thought of the way Teddy had looked after they'd had sex, not happily well-fucked but vulnerable, broken. Harry should have held him, he should have taken him someplace where they could lie together for awhile. But where?   
  
"Did you hear me?" Ginny said. "Are you asleep? Harry, for God's sake, what's the matter with you?"   
  
"Nothing!" Harry said. He sat up quickly. "I don't know what you want me to do. Cut Teddy off? As if he hasn't had enough problems? Your mother would never --"   
  
"My mother! Well, I'm not my mother and Teddy is not you! He's nothing like you were, you were grateful for our help, you were a member of our family --"   
  
"Because I was allowed to be! We've treated Teddy like a child minder and an assistant --"   
  
"A _child minder_? My children _never_ needed minding, I left my _career_ to take care of them, and I was glad to do it, though unlike some people I _wanted_ a career, Harry, maybe you didn't, maybe you should have --"   
  
"You're reinventing everything, you always do this! Who minded the children while you and I were giving interviews at functions –"   
  
"My mother, half the time! What is going on with you, Harry? You're having some kind of crisis, I can see it, and Teddy's got dead parents, too, so he can understand it better than I ever could, is that it?"   
  
"Are you mad? You want to blame our problems on _Teddy_?"   
  
"Harry, what the _fuck_ are you talking about, that's not what I'm saying at all!"   
  
There was a knock on the door, and Harry cursed himself for not thinking to put a Silencing Charm on the room. Usually he was more prepared for these rows. He and Ginny looked at each other like suddenly they were on the same side, both of them wanting to hide what was going on between them from everyone else.   
  
"Mummy?" Lily called through the door, sounding terrified. Ginny shut her eyes and put her -  
  
hands over her face.   
  
"Yes, dear?" Ginny said, her voice thinned by emotion. Lily was silent for a moment.   
  
"Will you come and set my hair for me?" she asked. Ginny took a deep breath and went to the mirror as if she could straighten herself out there. She left the room without looking at Harry again.   
  
Harry's heart was pounding when she was gone. This couldn't go on, but what was the alternative? He would die without his children, and even if he was able to visit after leaving Ginny they would look at him differently. He couldn't bear to think of it; James especially would hate him, and it would blacken Harry's heart so completely that he would be lost to Teddy, too. He wondered if Teddy had overheard his argument with Ginny, and prayed that he hadn't.   
  
He fell into a thin sleep and had a nightmare about drowning. When he woke up, the rain was still coming down hard and Ginny was still gone. He had no idea what time it was. When he left the room he half expected to find the house still alive with the shouts of the children, but it was silent and dark, as if everyone had left without him. He peeked through the open door of Rose and Lily's bedroom on the second floor and saw the girls asleep in their beds. Ginny was there, too, wrapped around Lily. Harry stood in the doorway for awhile, feeling like an evil shadow that had been cast over the others.   
  
When he turned around he crashed right into Teddy, who had sneaked up behind him. Harry went white and bit his tongue to keep from shouting in surprise, and Teddy only smiled at him like they were meeting for casual drinks instead of in the most dangerous possible place for the two of them to be together. Harry took Teddy's arm and pulled him out onto the porch.   
  
"I had an idea," Teddy whispered when the door was shut behind them. "We could Apparate back to your place in London. Or mine, though it's far less posh. What's wrong?"   
  
Harry shook his head. "I had a fight with Ginny," he said. "Did you hear?"   
  
"No." Teddy stepped closer to Harry in the darkness and put his hands on Harry's hips, gripping him just lightly. "Was it about me? Did you tell her everything?" He was smiling as if this was a great joke, but Harry didn't miss the sad hope in his face.   
  
"It -- it was about you, sort of. I don't know, Teddy, I don't know what to do. I -- yes, let's go to London, right now, I need to be with you and, and --"   
  
Teddy Apparated before Harry could finish, bringing Harry with him side-along. They landed in Harry's dark study in the house in London; the sound of Muggle traffic outside was such a welcome comfort that it was almost jarring. Harry steadied himself against Teddy, who swept in to kiss him. It was exciting, and wrong, to be in London without his family, the whole house quiet around them. But Teddy was his family, too.   
  
"Why even bother fighting anymore?" Teddy asked as he pulled at Harry's trousers, undoing them easily. "You'll both be happier if you leave her for me." He smiled, and Harry was a bit put off by him for a moment. He was still such a child, tossing off statements like that.   
  
"I think I'll have a drink," Harry said, kissing Teddy's nose. "Do you want one?"   
  
"No, thanks," Teddy said. "I can't get it up when I drink. Hey, have you got any Black Potion? It makes sex really incredible."   
  
"That stuff is illegal," Harry said, irritated by the fact that Teddy was already looking for ways to improve upon what they had done earlier, which had been an unequalled epiphany for Harry.   
  
"You're above the law, though, aren't you?" Teddy asked. He was high on this, Harry saw, on being allowed to roam around the dark study, the others left behind. Harry drank a brandy and watched Teddy wander the room, clapping his hands in front and behind him like a child and beaming without seeming to realise it. He came to Harry and kissed him hard before sliding down to his knees, taking Harry's unfastened trousers with him.   
  
"I thought you wanted to talk," Harry said as Teddy kissed the soft shape of his cock through his shorts.  
  
"There will be time for that, too." Teddy slipped one finger through the slit in Harry's boxers and Harry groaned at the sensation of being teased in quick little strokes. He felt his blood relocating to his cock as it began to unfurl inside his shorts. No one but Teddy had ever made him feel so aware of every stage of his body's response to pleasure.   
  
"What if someone realises we're both gone?" Harry asked, spreading his legs for Teddy's hand.   
  
"Then the world will surely end," Teddy said. He mouthed Harry's cock again, more hotly and insistently this time, and Harry inched his feet as far apart as he could while still cuffed by his trousers.   
  
"You shouldn't be so flippant," Harry said, watching Teddy flick just the tip of his tongue through the slit in Harry's boxers. Harry hissed when Teddy licked at his cock, just slightly, soft and wet, almost cautious.   
  
"I'm being flippant?" Teddy said. He licked more firmly and Harry groaned. "You're the one with everything to lose."   
  
Harry didn't like the tack this conversation was taking, particularly with his cock responding so fantastically to Teddy's licks and strokes, but he couldn't stop himself. He felt that they were already on a trajectory that would lead very quickly toward a permanent destination, and that he didn't have much time to hash things out.   
  
"You care about me, don't you?" Harry said. "And the children -- James, Albus, even Ginny, you must know -- _ahh_ , Teddy -- how, how this will hurt them."   
  
"Everybody gets hurt," Teddy said. He flicked a sharp look up at Harry. "It can't be stopped. They'll live. You and I have, haven't we?"   
  
Harry sighed and drew a hand through Teddy's hair. Teddy's face softened, and he darted his tongue out to lick the tip of Harry's cock apologetically. Harry laughed and stroked his hand down Teddy's cheek.   
  
"Yes," Harry said. "We have."   
  
He couldn't solve everything, and he had never shrunk from facing what was hard rather than retreating into what was easy. Being with Teddy felt deceptively easy as Harry leaned back into his favourite reading chair and spread his legs for Teddy's hot mouth, but it wouldn't be, of course, not when the papers got hold of the story. Being with Ginny had been easy, but it had been right, for a time, because she had given him his children, and much happiness for many years, different from what Teddy made him feel but still wonderful. The normalcy, the happy holidays, the large, loving family; Harry was still so grateful for all of it, though he couldn't find a place for himself within that particular circle of light any longer, at least not as Ginny's husband.   
  
Harry sighed happily as Teddy worked him over, on his knees and lapping at Harry's cock as if he worshiped it; he would seem to get distracted at moments and kiss it almost chastely before taking it into his mouth again. Harry felt his bones evaporate, the only hardness left in him gathered in his cock. He gripped both arms of his chair and arched up into Teddy's mouth when he came, biting out a groan as Teddy swallowed every drop, his hands braced on Harry's naked thighs. When Harry was spent he watched Teddy's mouth slide from his still throbbing cock, his chin wet and his gray eyes wicked but reverent. Harry held his arms out and Teddy climbed eagerly into them.   
  
"God, I love you," Harry mumbled into Teddy's hair as he held him, embarrassed by this admission but unable to keep it in. Teddy sighed with contentment and kissed Harry's neck, his hand spread over Harry's chest as if he was pacing Harry's heartbeat. Harry leaned down to capture Teddy's mouth, which was hot and used and salty with the flavour of Harry's come. Teddy moaned into Harry's mouth as Harry reached down between Teddy's legs to squeeze his cock, which was already hard in his trousers.   
  
"You get hard when my cock's in your mouth, hmm?" Harry said, speaking softly and with his lips still brushing against Teddy's. Teddy grinned and nipped at Harry's bottom lip.   
  
"And you get hard watching me beat off," he said. Harry smirked.   
  
"That's right," he said, sitting back. "So why don't you?"   
  
Teddy snorted and leaned onto the arm of the chair. He was spread across Harry's lap, his knees bent and his feet up on the chair's other arm. He looked so good in the light from the moon through the study's enormous window, absolutely beautiful.   
  
"Fine, then," Teddy said, unzipping. "If that's what you'd like."   
  
Harry could feel his heart pounding at the hollow of his throat as Teddy pushed his trousers and shorts down and tipped his knees apart. He seemed so soft in the darkness of the study; even the hardness of his cock seemed delicate. It was difficult not to reach out and touch him, but Harry kept his hands slack at his sides as Teddy began to stroke himself, his eyelids lowering slightly and his legs inching farther apart.   
  
"Tell me," Harry said, his breath quickening. He couldn't decide what he wanted to watch more, Teddy's hand moving on his cock or Teddy's face. "Tell me how it feels."   
  
"You want a narration?" Teddy laughed; Harry loved him so much that he almost said it again. "Okay, fine. It feels good, wanking, I'm sure that's news. And dirty, too, with you watching."   
  
"Dirty? Is that what you like?" Harry's hand twitched, longing to wrap around Teddy's cock, but he restrained himself. He was beginning to get hard again, and he wanted to weep at the accomplishment, when just a few days earlier even dedicated wanking couldn't bring him up.   
  
"I think it's what you like," Teddy said, smirking. His hand began to move a bit faster and he arched up into it, his mouth falling open and his eyes nearly shut.   
  
"Do you ever --" Harry squirmed, a bit humiliated but very hard now. "With your finger, do you ever --"   
  
"Stick my finger up my own arse? Of course I do, Harry, and other things, too, always imagining it's your cock."   
  
Harry wasn't sure if he was joking or serious, but he didn't care. He licked his lips and jerked his hips a bit, rubbing his cock against Teddy's thighs. Teddy grinned and let his head loll back onto the arm of the chair. He shut his eyes and began pumping himself harder.   
  
"Here," he said, his voice rough. He lifted a finger to Harry's mouth and pushed it between his lips. Harry sucked on it as directed, moaning in anticipation of what he hoped would come next.   
  
Harry was trembling as he watched Teddy bring his finger down between his legs and lift his arse. He felt as if he had never witnessed anything more intimate, and he was sweating with something like nervousness. Teddy drew circles around his arsehole with his wet finger, and Harry felt as if he was the one who was being teased. He moaned along with Teddy when Teddy finally pushed his finger in.   
  
"Do you like that?" Harry asked. His voice was a weak shudder, and he was fairly certain that he would come again just from the rub and shift of Teddy's arse over his cock.   
  
"Yeah," Teddy said, his eyes pinched shut and his whole body tense with the effort of fucking himself with his finger as his hand continued to move on his cock.   
  
"Are you still sore from earlier?" Harry didn't even intend this as a titillating question, but he felt a thick bead of come leak from the tip of his cock after he'd asked it.   
  
"A little," Teddy said. "But it's good, it's good. I feel raw, from you, from -- _ah_."   
  
"Are you going to come?" Harry asked, in a whisper, for some reason, as if they were boys who'd sneaked out of bed at Hogwarts to wank each other in some dark corner of their dormitory. Of course, they wouldn't have been in the same dormitory at Hogwarts. Teddy had been a Slytherin.   
  
"Yeah," Teddy said, his face pinching up as if he was suddenly in pain. He was stuffing his finger in and out of his arse as fast as he could now, his hand moving with clumsy speed on his cock. Harry watched the muscles on Teddy's stomach clench and release as he tried fight off his climax.   
  
"Let it go," Harry said, still whispering. "Come for me, show me, c'mon, let me see you come."   
  
Teddy cried out brokenly and jerked in Harry's lap, his arse snagging so roughly against Harry's cock that Harry came, too, as he watched Teddy's come spill out onto his stomach. Harry even caught a bit of it on the chin, and he almost laughed through his panted breathes as Teddy went slack across his lap, removing his wet and shaking finger from his arse.   
  
"Look how filthy you are," Harry said, rubbing a hand through Teddy's hair, which was damp with perspiration. It was summer and neither of them had bothered to cast a cooling charm on the room. "Do you want to be cleaned?"   
  
"Yes," Teddy breathed, so eagerly that it made Harry's softening cock throb painfully. "Yes, please."   
  
Harry retrieved his wand and placed the tip against Teddy's still-shuddering chest, which was slick with come. Teddy was motionless in anticipation, deflated onto the chair and over Harry, his shoulders loose and his breath coming in exhausted huffs.   
  
" _Tergeo_ ," Harry said, putting everything he had into it, his whole heart, and he never would have dreamed that a simple spell for cleaning the skin could have such gravity. Teddy gasped as it washed over him, and Harry ran his hand over Teddy's clean, dry chest when the spell had done its work.   
  
"Come here," Harry whispered, though Teddy was already sitting up to kiss him and curl in close. Harry moaned with idiotic glee as Teddy kissed him, so worn out that his lips only moved like a fish's over Harry's, opening and closing lazily. Harry tucked Teddy in against his chest and wrapped his arm around Teddy's legs. He wanted to sleep just like that, with Teddy naked and slumped against him, the room dark and quiet and London busily indifferent outside.   
  
"This room," Teddy said, his voice soft as he tilted toward sleep. "It smells like you."   
  
"Does it? And what do I smell like?"   
  
"Like sex, at the moment," Teddy said, and they both laughed. They were still laughing sleepily when the door to the study was pushed open.   
  
Harry almost didn't recognise Albus at first, instead hallucinating an image of himself as a fifteen year old, thin and wiry with wild hair. Albus' eyes were brown and he didn't wear glasses, but Harry thought he recognised that young, horrified look on his own face, as if in a mirror that turned back time, in the instant before he cursed and jumped up from the chair, Teddy tumbling out of his lap with a yelp and landing on the floor.   
  
"I heard voices!" Albus shouted defensively, his voice high with fright and shock. He ran from the study and Harry quickly buttoned up, stepping over Teddy as he chased after Albus.   
  
"Albus!" he shouted, running down the dark hallway; fortunately Albus was quite slow. "Wait!" Harry grabbed Albus' arm and spun him around. To Harry's great relief, Albus was not yet sobbing, only white with shock.   
  
"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, thinking they should start with the easy questions first. Albus' would be harder to answer.   
  
"I came through the Floo, I was looking for a book," Albus said. He stared at Harry as if he had no idea who he was, as if Harry was a stranger who had grabbed him on a train platform.   
  
"Albus, what you saw, I'm so sorry --"   
  
"Teddy," Albus said, stammering. "He was, you were --"   
  
"Albus, oh, God, Albus." Harry dipped his head. "I'm so sorry. So sorry, I don't, I wish you hadn't seen that --"   
  
"Can I go?" Albus asked, his voice beginning to shake badly. "Can I go back through the Floo?"   
  
"Of course you can, oh, God, listen, I'm going to tell everyone, I was going to, waiting for the right time, oh, God, fuck it all. Please just let me tell your mother, please. I know you don't owe me anything --"   
  
"I won't tell her," Albus said, backing away. "I won't."   
  
"Okay. Okay. Oh, Albus, Albus --"   
  
"I -- I've got to go," Albus said, and he ran for the Floo. Harry watched him go, and listened distantly as an animalistic noise of sorrow wrenched from his chest.   
  
He rose from the floor slowly, feeling suddenly like a very old man who had problems with his balance. As he moved back toward the study he had to brace himself against the wall to keep from falling over. Albus would certainly tell Ginny, whatever he said to Harry in the heat of his escape, and now there was no hope of any sort of horribly awkward but eventually happy transition of Harry the father and husband to Harry the father and buggerer of men who were young enough to be his children. He reached the door of the study and found Teddy hastily putting on his clothes. It took Harry a moment, as if his eyes needed adjusting to some deeper darkness, to realise that Teddy was sobbing.   
  
"It'll be alright," Harry said, though he didn't believe that. Teddy shook his head violently.   
  
"You'll go back to them now," Teddy said. "Mark it, you will -- it's clear what's more important to you."   
  
"What are you talking about? For God's sake, Teddy, my son just walked in on me with a naked man, have some --"   
  
"A naked man, that's right, that's all I am to any of you, the man who ended up naked in your lap and caused a great big row that will ultimately get smoothed over because God forbid anyone disturb the order of the royal Potter family!"   
  
"Teddy, you're talking nonsense, come here!" Harry crossed the room and tried to embrace him, but Teddy batted his hands away, crying in jags that seemed painful.   
  
"No, it's clear what you think of me, goddamn you, I should have known, I can't believe I was fooled. As soon as prince Albus arrived I was just trash to be stepped over on the way to protecting his feelings."   
  
"You're going to take issue with my concern for my son's feelings? Teddy, listen, I'm sorry, I just reacted --"   
  
"Yes, you reacted, just as I should have known you would, and you'd do it again, you'd step _on_ me if it meant you could get back to your precious family faster!"   
  
"Hey!" Harry shouted, grabbing Teddy's face roughly. He backed him into the bookshelf-lined wall. "You _are_ my family!" Harry screamed, Teddy's eyelashes fluttering against Harry's breath. "And I love you, Teddy, I love you and I need you so much, more than you know, but if you can't accept the fact that I need my children's love, too, then I think you need to fucking grow up a bit."   
  
Teddy's mouth crooked, then his lips shook as he started crying more softly. Harry stroked his thumbs across Teddy's temples and pressed his body to Teddy's, crushing him against the wall.   
  
"You don't know," Teddy said. "You don't know what it's been like."   
  
"I do," Harry said. "My godfather, Sirius, your father's friend, I -- wanted something from him, I didn't know the name for it, maybe I still don't, but one summer he and your father and Ron and Hermione all stayed together in a house in London without telling me, and when I found out, I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life. Which seemed ridiculous, because I'd already been through quite a lot of other things that warranted that kind of rage more, but it wasn't just about being with them, my friends, the people I loved, it was that feeling I'd always had, that I'd always been on the outside and I always would be, no matter how people smiled in my face and told me they cared for me."   
  
"Just don't leave me," Teddy cried, finally breaking into Harry's waiting arms, crumpling against his chest. "Don't leave me, please, please, Harry."   
  
"I won't," Harry said, stroking Teddy's hair as he rocked him in his arms. "I won't, not ever, no matter how hard things get. And they will be hard, Teddy. I want my children in my life, I'll be ruined if I lose them."   
  
Teddy wept and said nothing more, clutching at Harry desperately. Harry brought him back over to his reading chair to shush and comfort him as twenty-five years worth of his orphan's anxiety spilled out of him. By the time his crying finally stopped he felt like only a bag of loosely collected parts, as if he would fall to pieces if he tried to stand. Harry wrapped him in tighter, holding him together.   
  
"I have to go back to Greece," Harry said. "To face everyone. I want you to come with me, but if you don't want to --"   
  
"I do," Teddy said, lifting his face. "I do want to. I care about them, too, the children and Ginny, it's just, just --"   
  
"I know," Harry said. He kissed Teddy's forehead, breathing in the scent of his spell-cleaned skin. "I know why you're upset. And I forgive you, oh, Teddy, how could I not? I wanted Sirius for myself, when I was fifteen. I wanted, I think, just this, to be allowed to finally fall apart, and to have him put me back together."   
  
Teddy sniffled and sat up. He took Harry's glasses off of his face and cleaned them on his shirt, then replaced them.   
  
"I love it when you do that," Harry said. He had no idea why. Maybe he still wanted to be taken care of, sometimes.   
  
"I always wanted to," Teddy said. "I always wanted to do so many things to you, for you, with you."   
  
"And we will, we'll be together," Harry said. "But first we have to go back to Greece. I have to handle this as delicately as I can, if that's even possible now."   
  
"You'll manage," Teddy said weakly, and Harry took his hand.   
  
"Ready?" he asked, taking a deep breath and preparing to Apparate.   
  
"No," Teddy said. He sighed. "Yes."   
  
*   
  
The sun was just beginning to peek over the mountains on the horizon when they returned to Kokari. Harry headed toward the bedroom he shared with Ginny and Teddy returned quietly to his room. On the way to his bedroom, Harry peeked in to Rose and Lily's room; Ginny was still fast asleep, holding onto Lily. He walked by Albus and Hugo's room, but the door was shut and he didn't risk opening it.   
  
Alone in his bedroom, he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, feeling strangely calm. Things would finally be revealed. It was hard to believe that it had been only a few days since Harry had become involved with Teddy, since he'd had something to hide; it felt to him like it had been years. He suffered a brief worry that he was being too hasty, throwing away his life because of a shag that had melted his brain and the way Teddy looked when he wanked himself, like the picture of all that was dirty and dark but still somehow innocent. But something had locked into him since that first night when Teddy sneaked up on him with the Invisibility Cloak. He remembered the choking feeling he'd had when he couldn't see all of Teddy, when he was halfway disappeared. That was only the start of it, but he still felt that way, like he needed Teddy as much as Teddy needed him. It had never been that way between Harry and Ginny; they had enjoyed each other, but she was a capable witch who would have moved on after the War if Harry had been smart enough to allow it. At the time, he couldn't imagine not staying at Ginny's side, sleeping in her bed at the Burrow and being invited into family photographs. That was what he had needed, then: not Ginny, but all that came with her.   
  
He rolled onto his side and sighed, feeling sticky with the blackest guilt. This, truly, would be the hardest task he would ever have to face down. Ginny would be heartbroken. She would say terrible things, she would gather the children together and leave at once. Hermione would be furious, and she would look at Harry like he'd made a fool of her, too, for never letting on that he was capable of such a betrayal. Ron would likely try to kill him.   
  
At some point he slept, only briefly, for when he was awakened by the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing it was still just barely dawn. Harry sat up quickly, bleary-eyed but ready to accept his fate. He was surprised to see not Ginny but Albus standing at the foot of the bed.   
  
"Dad?" Albus said, his voice a faint little thing, as if Harry was a slumbering beast who would be dangerous once awakened.   
  
"Al," Harry said, filled with equal parts terror and relief that Albus had sought him out. "How -- are you?" He winced at the question, inwardly cursing his idiocy. Albus shrugged and climbed onto the bed. He scooted over and leaned onto the pillows beside Harry's.   
  
"I feel terrible," Harry said. "This wasn't how I wanted you to find out. God, what an obvious, stupid thing to say -- I'm sorry, everything that comes out of my mouth will only make it worse, I'm afraid."   
  
Albus sighed heavily and looked down at the bedspread. He hadn't really met Harry's eyes until he'd climbed up beside him. Harry sat patiently and watched Albus picking at the rim of one of his socks.   
  
"Are you gay?" Albus asked, finally looking up at Harry.   
  
"I think so," Harry said, his face turning red as if they were in the Great Hall together and this would ruin Harry's schoolboy reputation. Harry's heartbeat felt like a knife that was slicing at him in regular intervals.   
  
"Oh," Albus said, his voice still so soft. Harry stared, not sure where this was leading. Was it possible that Albus hadn't come home and woken his mother in tears to tell her what had happened at once? It seemed so; Ginny certainly wouldn't be sleeping peacefully in Lily's bedroom if she knew the truth.   
  
"Al, I don't know what to tell you," Harry said. "Except that I love you and James and Lily so much, and --"   
  
"I think I am, too," Albus said, his voice barely there, just a tiny pinch of sound. He looked down and then up again, his eyes full of tears. Harry swallowed the urge to start sobbing himself and touched Albus' hair, which was just like his.   
  
"Then you're much smarter and braver than I was at fifteen," Harry said, trying not to give away how close he was to crying. "Because it's taken me much, much longer to come to terms with what you have, and I've hurt so many people because of it. Albus, I'm so proud of you."   
  
"You're proud?" Albus asked, tears slipping down his cheeks. He sounded horrified.   
  
"Yes, Al, of course I am. It's so hard -- it's so hard for me to admit, finally, what I am. And look at you, a boy of fifteen, knowing already, saying so out loud.”   
  
Albus wiped his face and leaned in to hug Harry, who felt like the sun had just risen not out over the mountains but inside his chest. He kissed the top of Albus' head and helped him dry his tears.   
"I was so afraid you'd hate me for it," Albus said. He sobbed once, then seemed to choke it all down. "When I saw you -- and Teddy -- at first it was so awful, but then I thought, now he won't hate me, he can't."   
  
"Oh, I never, never, could!"   
  
"Will you really tell Mum?" Albus asked.   
  
"Yes," Harry said. "I'll tell her as soon as she wakes up."   
  
"No, don't," Albus said. "Don't tell her yet. Let's have one more day, Dad, okay? One more day before she -- before things change forever."   
  
Harry sighed. He rubbed Albus' back absently as they sat together on the bed. When the door opened again, both of them jumped. It was Ginny, her face still puffy with sleep. She frowned.   
  
"What's going on?" she asked. "Albus? What's happened, are you alright?"   
  
"I'm fine, Mum," Albus said. "I was just telling Dad my news."   
  
"What -- oh, that."   
  
"You knew?" Harry asked. He felt hurt, though he knew he shouldn't. He wasn't sure where Albus had got the idea that Harry would hate him for being gay, but he wished Ginny would have told him about Albus' concerns so that he would know why Albus was being so cold and distant toward him.   
  
"Albus told me," Ginny said. "You're not having a complex about it, are you?" she asked Harry.   
  
"No, Mum," Albus said. "He's not at all."   
  
Ginny face relaxed and she walked over to sit on the end of the bed. Albus crawled over to hug her shoulders before climbing out.   
  
"I'm going to go rest," he said. "I haven't slept at all. Hey, Dad, the wireless said the weather's going to clear up for a few hours this afternoon. Maybe we could go for a sail?"   
  
"Yes, that would nice," Harry said, his chest feeling hollowed out now, the sun that had risen there dissipating. "All of us could go," he said, looking to Ginny. She raised her eyebrows.   
  
"So you two had a big talk about it, then?" she said when Albus was gone. Harry nodded. He was so tired; he wanted to sleep for days.   
  
"You might have told me," Harry said. He felt like the most ridiculous hypocrite as soon as the words were out.   
  
"He made me swear not to," Ginny said.   
  
Harry grunted and lay back on his pillows again. He listened as Ginny gathered her things and went into the hall bathroom, heard the shower come on. When he was sixteen he had run into the common room in Gryffindor Tower, grabbed her into his arms and kissed her in the middle of a room full of cheering Quidditch fans who seemed to all turn to cheering for their kiss as it happened. It was such a classic scene, so fitting in the life of the great Harry Potter, finally a happy counterpart to all of his suffering. He remembered feeling that way then, as if he'd achieved something beyond just kissing a pretty girl, as if he had done the right thing, which was what he always did, and what he was already growing famous for. The scene when he'd first noticed Teddy was less cinematic, certainly, but he had felt nothing then but what he wanted, and he wanted it only for himself, not for the papers, not for a room full of admirers or one of the fat biographies written about him. He had not felt like the great Harry Potter at all in that moment, and he never did when he was with Teddy. He only felt like one hapless, orphaned boy who had found another. It was wonderful.  
  
*

The weather did clear up as promised, and the warmth of the sun felt like an epiphany on Harry's shoulders as he guided the little sail boat they had rented for the afternoon through the calm sea. Sailing was quite easy with wands to do the heavy lifting, but Harry enjoyed the simplicity of it, too, just the wind in his face as the boat floated through the water rather than the air, using nothing more complicated than a piece of canvas to catch the wind, no spells or charms or magical artefacts.   
  
James had turned down Harry's invitation to sail in favour of sneaking off with Hugo, both of them looking as if they had some fantastic mischief in mind, and Rose came in his place. She sat at the back of the boat with Lily, giggling about something, and Harry steered with Albus at his side while Ginny leaned near the prow like a mermaid who decorated a Muggle ship. She was beautiful, and Harry told himself that she would be okay. She would be happy again. Men would flock to her as they always had, and she would find her real love as he had.   
  
"Dad," Albus said, shouting over the wind. Harry turned to Albus and put a hand on his shoulder. "Will it be horrible?" Albus asked, his brown eyes so like Ginny's that it made Harry quake, as if she was already staring at him, listening to the news that would ruin her life, at least for a bit.   
  
"I don't know," Harry said, looking ahead toward Ginny again. "I think it might be a relief, after the initial shock."   
  
"Yes," Albus said, smiling. "That's how it was for me."   
  
"But, the fact that it's Teddy," Harry said, quieter now. "Does that bother you?"   
  
"A bit," Albus said seriously. "But better him than some random bloke who we'd all hate, right? Teddy was so kind to me when we were young, and he still is, really. I remember him carrying me around when I was little. If James or Lily were teasing me he would pick me up and tell me to shush."   
  
Harry smiled and ruffled Albus' already wind-blasted hair. Ginny walked up behind them and touched both their shoulders.   
  
"Better let me steer," she said, nodding to the horizon, where black storm clouds were gathering. "We need to get back to the harbour."   
  
"Fuck, not again," Harry muttered.   
  
"You knew it would only be a brief reprieve," Ginny said. She was referring to the weather report that Harry had heard on the wireless, but the statement weighed on him heavily. He had known that, yes.   
  
They reached the harbour before the storm, but Harry's heart was pounding as if it had caught them. Now that they'd had their last normal afternoon, he would have to tell Ginny the truth. Just imagining her face as she heard it made him want to run like a coward and never look back.   
  
Back at the rental, things were eerily quiet. Thunder rumbled outside as they dropped their shoes off into the lobby and chattered about dinner. Despite the oncoming storm, no one had put on any lights.   
  
"Mum?" Rose called down the stairs to the ground floor. No answer returned. Teddy came thundering down the stairs from the second floor, and Harry could see on his face that something was horribly wrong. He went cold with dread and braced himself.   
  
"Harry," Teddy said. His voice was strong and serious, grave. "Ginny. Something's happened."   
  
"What?" Ginny said, grabbing Lily's shoulders instinctively in her panic. "Where is everyone? Where is James?"   
  
"James and Hugo --" Teddy glanced at Harry with pity that terrified him. "It seems that they each ate a whole package of Fizzing Whizbees, as best as we can tell, and they must, they must. They must have somehow got outside."   
  
"What?" Ginny shrieked. "What -- what -- how do you know?"   
  
"Hermione saw James," Teddy said, his voice beginning to tremble. "He was floating over by the mountains on the far side of the island -- she Apparated back to the house and grabbed Hugo's broom, but the wind came up and by the time she got back --"   
  
"No, no," Ginny said, as if she was rejecting this information outright. "No, no, oh, God, oh God --"   
  
"Hermione and Ron are out searching for them," Teddy said. "They wanted me to wait for you. We've got two more brooms here, and I could go to the market to see if there are any I could buy --"   
  
"Oh, James, oh no, oh --" Ginny began to sink to the floor, and Harry caught her. Their eyes met, and a bottomless terror unknowable to everyone else in the world passed between them.   
  
"You and I will take the brooms," Harry said to her, and she nodded, the colour just beginning to drain from her face. "We'll split up and search the island. Teddy will go to the market and look for more brooms, and Albus and the girls will wait here for news --"   
  
"Mummy," Lily cried, tears already sliding down her face. "Mummy, what if, in the storm, what if he's --"   
  
"You'll wait here," Ginny said to Lily, standing up straight. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she was shaking badly. "Your father and I will find them. Maybe Ron and Hermione already have."   
  
Harry felt a sharp sickness growing in his stomach. Of course Ron and Hermione hadn't found them, and it was likely that he and Ginny wouldn't, either, that a whole team of Aurors on top-of-the-line brooms wouldn't be able to locate two boys who might be floating far out over the sea by now, if they hadn't reached the ocean in the wind from the storm.   
  
Harry turned to vomit against the wall, and he heard Lily and Rose both fall to sobbing, Teddy shushing them. Harry stood shakily, and he felt Teddy's hand, flat and cool against his back.   
  
"I'll clean that," Teddy said, handing Harry one of the remaining brooms. "You go."   
  
*   
  
On the day that James was born, Harry had celebrated with the whole family, all the Weasleys crowded and loud with cheer in the waiting room of St Mungo's, Ginny exhausted in her bed and nuzzling the new baby. As soon as he could manage it, Harry had found a supply closet on the maternity floor, near the men's, and had ducked into it to curl up into a ball and sob. He never quite figured out why; it just happened, and it felt good, like a piss he'd been holding in for years and could finally have in peace. He did a spell to clean his face and left the closet to return to his family's revelry, and he had no similar outburst of emotion after the birth of Albus or Lily. The best he could figure was that he was crying out of joy, but also terror. There was suddenly someone in the world whom he loved more than anything, and who could be lost just like the others.   
  
He flew toward the mountain where Hermione had spotted James while Ginny headed toward the western end of the island. Despite his desperate attempts to concentrate, he couldn't stop imagining James floating over the ocean, alone and whimpering in terror as the storm drew closer and the levitating effect of the candy began to wear off. James was due to begin his Apparation lessons when they returned home from their holiday. Harry cursed himself aloud for forcing James to put the lessons off in favour of this horrible trip. Now, maybe, almost definitely, he had lost James forever.   
  
This, he knew, was why he had never followed his selfish impulses. This was why he had done nothing but sacrifice. It was required of him, it was the way things were meant to be. He was being punished, now, for trying to have something for himself, for wanting Teddy and damning the consequences.   
  
"Please," he said, not sure whom he was speaking to. The storm? Fate? "Please, please, punish me, not him, not James, strike me down now, I don't care, just please let him be okay, oh, please."   
  
All he could think about was how scared James and Hugo must be. How terrifying it must have been to float outside, laughing thoughtlessly, to begin to drift higher and higher, to lose control in the wind and shout to each other in sudden panic --   
  
Harry shook the thoughts away as best he could. It was no use making himself upset. He was already crying in an out of body sort of way, tears leaking down his face and mixing with the rain that was beginning to fall. Lightning split the sky out over the mountain, and Harry sobbed with animal fear. He would march himself to Azkaban when they returned to England. He hadn't just destroyed his family by his selfish actions. He had killed his son.   
  
He saw a figure on a broom streak through the sky when the next flash of lightning illuminated it. It looked like Ron, maybe; Harry steered away. He certainly couldn't face Ron now, maybe not ever again. He wasn't only responsible for the loss of James, but for Hugo, too.   
  
"No," he said aloud. No, they weren't lost yet. James was a smart, athletic boy; maybe he had caught hold of something and had been able to hold on until the candy's magic wore off. Harry swallowed heavily. It most certainly would have worn off by now, wherever the boys had ended up.   
  
He steeled himself and circled the mountain again. It was getting so dark as the storm closed in on the island, and the thunder was deafening. It sounded like a solid thing, a great, heavy hand made of black clouds that would knock Harry out of the sky just by its noise. He squinted behind his waterproofed glasses and moved in closer to the tall trees that were growing on top of the mountain. They were whipping in the wind as if they would be torn up by their two hundred year old roots at any moment. Harry reared back, remembering the Whomping Willow and how much damage a tree branch to the face could do. He turned to go back toward the village on the other side of the island, but just before he did, he saw something.   
  
He'd always been good at spotting that tiny snitch, even in horrible rainstorms. He turned back to the patch of trees at the very top of the mountain and saw it again: something red, high and out of place in the tallest tree. He raced toward it, cursing the broom he was riding for its infuriating lack of speed.   
  
The figure that came into focus as Harry neared the swaying tree struck through him like an endless parade of golden snitches that, if caught, would save the world. It was a boy, clutching at the top of the tree for dear life, his legs wrapped around a high spindly branch. It was James.   
  
"Dad!" James screamed as Harry drew close. He was covered in cuts from pine needles and soaked to the bone, pale as a fish. But he wasn't bleeding, he wasn't hurt. Harry reached out and pulled his son from the tree and onto the broom with him, choking on his breath as his relief seemed to flood the dark sky with light.   
  
"James, James!" he cried, hugging his son to him as they flew backward, away from the thrashing branches of the tree. James sobbed and clung to Harry, wrapping his arms around Harry's shoulders and his legs around his waist.   
  
"Oh, God, oh, God," Harry said, stroking James' wet hair as they sank closer to the ground. He knew he didn't have much time to revel in finding James, because there was lightning everywhere and they could be struck out of the sky any second. Harry cried against James' shoulder as James shuddered with cold and fright. Harry was awash in gratitude for again having a reason to fear lightning, to not want to be blasted out of the sky. James was alive, and James needed him to keep his head.   
  
"Where's Hugo?" James asked when they reached the ground. Harry stood shakily and carried James, whose legs didn't seem to be working, over to a Muggle house and underneath a skinny porch covered with brightly coloured flowers. He kissed James' wet face ten thousand times, not wanting to answer his question.   
  
"Dad, where's Hugo?" James asked again, still crying in great, heaving breaths. "He was with me, I tried -- I tried to reach him, he was screaming for help, oh, Dad, Dad, where is he, have they found him?"   
  
Harry shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "They might have, your mother and Ron and Hermione are searching as well, maybe Teddy, too, he went to look in the market for another broom -- oh, God, James, I thought you were gone, I thought I'd lost you."   
  
James let Harry hold him and kiss his forehead, hanging on to Harry in a way that Harry never thought he would experience again, after James turned twelve and decided he was too much of a man to be hugged like this by his parents, as if he was a precious treasure they would never let go of if they could help it.   
  
"We should look for Hugo," James said. The thunder dropped like boulders over their heads, as if to warn them off of it.   
  
"Not you," Harry said. "It's too dangerous. C'mon, let's go back to the house. Maybe Hugo will be there."   
  
Harry grabbed the broom he'd been using and Apparated back to the rental, bringing James with him. They landed with a wet, unsteady thud in the centre of the second floor living room, and Lily and Rose bounded off of the sofa with identical gasps.   
  
"James!" Lily shrieked, throwing herself at her brother. James absorbed her greeting and drew Rose to him as well when she crossed the room, sobbing.   
  
"Where's Hugo?" she asked. "Where's my brother?"   
  
"I don't know." James sank to the floor, weeping while Lily kissed and petted him the way Harry had earlier. Albus ran into the room, his eyes wrecked from crying, and threw himself onto James without a word. Rose inched away from the pile of siblings and put her hand over her face, crying.   
  
"I'll go find your brother," Harry said to Rose, touching her frail little shoulder. She looked like Hermione with neater hair, and for the first time since they returned to the news of Hugo and James' misadventure he allowed himself to consider what Hermione and Ron would be like if they lost their son. He shut his eyes and sucked in a deep breath.   
  
Someone Apparated into the middle of the room, making them all gasp. It was Teddy, soaking wet and broom-less.   
  
"All the shops were closed," he said. He was short of breath and seemed as if he was about to fall over. Harry went to him and offered a hand to steady him. He saw Teddy's eyes fall on James and go wide with relief.   
  
"James!" he shouted, rushing forward to add himself to the pile of Potter children who were huddled on the floor. James hugged Teddy tightly and Albus slid his arm around Teddy's shoulders, bringing him into the fold.   
  
"I found him in a tree on the mountain," Harry said. "James, where was the last place you saw Hugo?"   
  
"A wind came after I grabbed onto the tree," James said. "It -- it. It blew him away, down toward the village."   
  
"That's good, that's good," Harry said. "Better the village than out -- well. I'll go back and look for him."   
  
"I can look on foot," Teddy said.   
  
"No, it will take too long," Harry said. "Two sets of eyes are better than one. You can ride with me."   
  
"I want to come, too," James said.   
  
"No," Harry said sharply. "Girls, Albus, you make sure he stays here. Do a body bind on him if you must, I'm sure Hogwarts will forgive you." He gave James a threatening look, then fell down to the floor to hug him again.   
  
"Dad," James whispered against Harry's ear, squeezing him hard. "You saved me."   
  
Harry leaned back and touched James' face; he didn't want to leave him, didn't want to have James out of his sight for even a second. But Hugo was still in danger, so Harry stood and gripped his broom again.   
  
"Shall we Apparate there?" Teddy asked when they were out on the front landing, preparing to mount the broom.   
  
"No," Harry said. "We'll have more opportunities to spot him if we fly."   
  
Teddy nodded and climbed onto the broom behind Harry. The storm had intensified, and the sky was so black that Harry had Teddy cast _Lumos_ just to be able to see what was ahead of him. The wind and rain were so intense that it was hard to steer the broom at all. After he and Teddy had been flying for what felt like hours, so beaten by the wind and the rain that they could barely keep their eyes open, his last flickering hope began to fade.   
  
"Should we start looking on foot?" Teddy screamed over the noise of the storm. Harry's stomach lurched and he was afraid he was going to vomit again. He had been thinking the same thing: they would have a better chance of finding Hugo on the ground, now. And if he'd reached the ground and hadn't made it back to the rental -- Harry shut his eyes, so tired of trying to find a second world-saving snitch that he knew in his heart had not been in the air for some time.   
  
"We'll look around the village," Harry shouted back over his shoulder, and Teddy nodded. The only reason Harry was able to go on at all was the tight brace of Teddy's arms around his chest and the firm press of his body. Harry had so rarely faced this sort of hopelessness and fear and not been completely alone.   
  
They walked the village like zombies, eyeless and stumbling. Harry knew it would be wise to split up, but he was afraid to lose Teddy, too, and he stayed close, gripping Teddy's hand at moments. They both had their wands out, using _Lumos_ to search through the darkness. When Harry felt that he would literally drop to the ground with exhaustion, he paused to lean against a building and catch his breath.   
  
"Maybe we should go back," Teddy said, leaning beside him. "Maybe they've already found him."   
  
"Oh, God," Harry said, shutting his eyes behind his water-beaten glasses, the charm he'd used to keep them clear beginning to wear thin, which meant they'd been searching for almost four hours. "What if they haven't?"   
  
"Come on," Teddy said. "We should at least dry off and do a warming spell before we make ourselves too ill to keep searching."   
  
Harry nodded, and realised that his head was pounding. He wondered when that had begun. Teddy took his hand and they Apparated back to the rental. They thumped against the second floor's carpet and Harry was afraid to open his eyes. When he did, he did not see Hugo, and could tell from the grave faces of his children that he had not been found.   
  
"Nothing?" James asked as Harry and Teddy stood before them, panting and washed pale by the rain. Harry shook his head. Rose whimpered and turned her face against Lily's shoulder. Lily stroked Rose's hair and whispered reassurances.   
  
"We're just going to dry our clothes and catch our breath," Harry said. "Then we'll go back out."   
  
"No," Ginny said, entering from the third floor. "Hermione's called in a search team from London. Aurors, Hit Wizards, anyone she knows who owns a broom."   
  
Ginny's hair was wet and she was barefoot in sweats and a tunic. She went to James and knelt down before him to stare up at him with unabashed wonder.   
  
"Harry, you found him," she said, so quietly that for some reason Harry thought he'd been the only person who heard it.   
  
"Where's Hermione?" Harry asked.   
  
"In her room," Ginny said, still staring at James, and rubbing his knees as if to check and recheck his solidity. Harry turned to Teddy and touched his wrist as he walked out of the room. Just one look from Teddy made Harry feel as if all the horrors of the world could be borne, at least now that he knew James was alive. But as he prepared himself to face Hermione in her grief, the comfort he'd drawn just from Teddy's presence in the world faded.   
  
"Hermione?" Harry said softly, opening the door to her bedroom when she didn't answer his knocks. She was sitting on the side of the unmade bed, her back to him. Her clothes and hair were still wet. Harry sat on the floor by the bed and looked up at her. Her face was blank.   
  
"Where's Ron?" he asked her.   
  
"Out with the others." Her voice was surprisingly strong, as if it was coming from someone else, not the wrecked, empty-faced woman who was sitting in the dark.   
  
"Hermione." Harry didn't know how to go on. He was afraid to even touch her, as if to make any contact with her at all would be an insult, he whose son was safe and dry on the next floor.   
  
"You found James," she said. "If I'm honest, I didn't think we'd find either of them. But I should have known, Harry, I should have known. You can do anything. You, only you."   
  
"You should get out of these clothes," Harry said.   
  
"Why?" Hermione looked at him with a sudden sharpness in her eyes that was more terrifying than the lightning that had rained around him while he flew through the storm on his broom. "So that I don't catch ill?"   
  
"Well --"   
  
"What difference would it make? I want to _die_ , Harry, I would rather die than wait here for them to bring -- back -- his -- body." She sobbed between the last four words and Harry rose to catch her as she crumpled forward.   
  
"How can this be happening?" she wept, punching weakly at Harry's chest while he held her. "How, Harry, how could we lose everything _now_ after, after --?"   
  
"I don't know," Harry said, petting her hair, feeling useless. "I don't know, I don't know."   
  
He sat with Hermione until she went quiet in his arms, only moaning low in the back of her throat, as if she was dying, and vocalizing the last of her weakening pain. Around what would be dinner time if the normal world hadn't ended that afternoon, Ron opened the bedroom door and stood, framed in the light from the hallway and dripping onto the floor. Harry couldn't see Ron's face, only his silhouette, and he was glad.   
  
Harry didn't have to ask if there had been any news; Ron's silence told him that there hadn't been. Ron came to the side of the bed and eased Hermione from Harry's arms and into his. Harry left without even meeting Ron's eyes, feeling like a traitor. He was a man whose son was not dead, and he would forgive Ron for hating him intensely then and ever after just for that.   
  
As he walked back toward the others he thought about the wild guilt he'd experienced as he searched for James. It had been stilled instantly by the sight of his son, but should it really be that easy? This was all partly his fault, after all. The vacation was his idea. His liaisons with Teddy, even though they were born of love and devoid of malicious intentions, were a poison against his family. The fact that his family was now suffering seemed like it couldn't be just a coincidence.   
  
He walked into the living area and surveyed the occupants. Lily and Rose were missing; Rose must have gone to her room to cry. Lily was good to attend to her, and Harry was proud of her. Ginny was on the couch with James and Albus both leaning on her, transformed into little boys again, clinging to Mummy until the storm passed.   
  
"Teddy hasn't gone back out to search, has he?" Harry asked.   
  
"No, he's upstairs making something to eat," Ginny said, stroking through James' thick hair absently as she spoke. "James says he has no appetite, but he needs to get his strength back." She sighed and sat forward to rub her face, the boys shifting to slump against her back. Harry loved her so much in that moment that his eyes watered. His children needed her. She was a wonderful mother, and he felt like a wretched arse for ever criticizing her parenting methods.   
  
Feeling useless when it came to comforting people rather than pulling them from danger, Harry ascended the stairs to the kitchen slowly. His legs were shaky from so much time spent on a broom, but he didn't want to Apparate. It was the sort of day, with the storm crashing against the house as if the wind had come to take them like it had taken Hugo and James, Fizzing Whizbees or not, when he was afraid that he wouldn't necessarily reappear.   
  
He found Teddy working over a huge pot of soup, stirring it with his wand and touching the hem of his shirt with frantic swipes of his hands. Harry knew he could never have Teddy, that it would ruin everything, but he crossed the kitchen and put his hands on Teddy's hips. Teddy startled belatedly, as if he had been in another world until Harry touched him.   
  
"What are you doing?" Harry whispered, his mouth close to Teddy's ear. Just the scrape of Teddy's damp hair against Harry's cheek was like the strongest Cheering Charm, only not so simple, because it made Harry sad, too.   
  
"I thought – everyone should eat," Teddy said, stiff in Harry's arms. "God – I just – I don't know. I wish I could help."   
  
"So do I," Harry said. "That's all I've ever wanted."   
  
"But you have, Harry, fuck, don't pretend to be modest, you have, and what have I ever done for anybody? Those people downstairs, Ginny, your family, they're noble like you, they belong with you."   
  
"What part of you isn't noble?" Harry asks.   
  
"Every part."   
  
"Bollocks. Teddy, Teddy. Look at you, making soup."   
  
"It's stupid, like everything I do. Fuck, no one will eat it. They'll just look at me like I'm mad for offering."   
  
"I don't know how to tell you this," Harry said, squeezing him more tightly, whispering low and soft. "I don't know if it will make any sense. But that's why I love you."   
  
"Because I'm stupid and useless?"   
  
"Teddy, no. Because you're here making soup that no one will appreciate. I don't know how to tell you, but it's more than I ever knew how to do for the people I love."   
  
Teddy shook his head, and Harry turned him around in his arms so that they were facing each other. Teddy was almost gray, stricken and pale, and he took hold of the front of Harry's shirt.   
  
"It's a dream," Teddy said. "A nightmare. I wish the rest of you could wake from it."   
  
"It's my life," Harry said, shaking his head. "Welcome to it."   
  
He kissed Teddy on the mouth, just softly, and then held onto him, because he seemed to be the only thing in the world that could stop the wind. They parted when they heard footsteps on the stairs, and watched each other from the space they'd put between them, Teddy's mouth open slightly as if he was struggling not to speak. James and Albus trotted into the kitchen, sniffing at the air curiously, and Ginny followed. Ginny took one look at Harry and he understood at once what she was thinking, for the first time in awhile. He Apparated up to their bedroom, and when he landed there she had already arrived.   
  
"Harry," she said in a breathless rush, crossing the room to throw her arms around him. They held onto each other so tightly that they seemed to squeeze out fresh tears just by the pressure of their arms, and soon they were both sobbing with profound relief for themselves and wild grief for Ron and Hermione. Harry pulled back and put his forehead against Ginny's, allowing her to see the wrecked ugliness of his face as he cried.   
  
"Oh, God, Harry, oh God." Ginny broke into sobs again and clutched at Harry's shoulders. "You found him, you saved him, if you hadn't if, if, if --"   
  
"I know," he choked out, his shoulders shaking in jerks. "I know."   
  
"Hugo, if he's gone --"   
  
"It's too horrible. I can't even imagine it yet."   
  
Ginny nodded and stared up at Harry. "You," she said, whispering. "Are still my hero. You've just saved me again."   
  
Harry laughed a little, embarrassed. She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, her lips trembling. Harry returned her kiss chastely, wondering if he still tasted of the soup Teddy had sampled from the pot, and pulled back to look down at her chest.   
  
"That's over with, isn't it?" Ginny asked, her voice so small. Harry felt as if they were in the Chamber again, and that this time he had decided to let her die there, alone. But no, he had saved her. He had already saved her again, and in the shadow of what had almost certainly happened to Hugo, his secret seemed so petty and small, light as air.   
  
"I'm sorry," Harry said, touching her face but still unable to meet her eyes. "But it is, Gin, it is."   
  
Ginny sucked in her breath and let it out. Harry looked up and met her eyes, held her gaze. She looked so brave, her hair a mess, one damp piece still streaked across her forehead.   
  
"I know," she said. "I've known."   
  
"The children," Harry said. "I hate myself for this."   
  
"Don't," Ginny said. "We were both so determined. I think I know why it all felt so right back then, because it was leading necessarily to them. So thank God for our mistake, Harry."   
  
"It was the best thing we've ever done," he agreed. He kissed her forehead, wondering if he should go on. But when would be better than now, with all but the death of a child so vividly flimsy and meaningless?   
  
"The problems were never about you," he said. "I was denying something to myself for a long time. I, I'm actually. Gay, you see."   
  
She shut her eyes and sucked in her breath.   
  
"That was Hermione's theory," she said. Harry rolled his eyes, prepared to go off on a rant about Hermione always being right, and then he thought of her downstairs, destroyed, and the reflex passed quickly.   
  
"There's more," Harry said. Ginny raised her eyebrows in a way that was almost comical. Harry took a deep breath.   
  
"It's Teddy," he said, unable to meet her eyes as he said this. He stared at her bare feet. Her nails were painted pale purple. "It's Teddy, I'm in love with him."   
  
Ginny let go of him and fell to a seat on the end of the bed. She frowned, opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again.   
  
"Don't tell me," she said, shutting her eyes. "Don't you dare tell me that you and he, since he was a boy --"   
  
"No, no! God, no! It's just been the past few days, actually." Harry started to go on, but stopped himself. Ginny shook her head slowly.   
  
"I never understood you," she said. "I never knew you, not really."   
  
"You knew one part of me. You knew the person I wanted myself to be. That was the only person that I let you know."   
  
She looked up at him, suddenly seeming very old and wise, like a prophetess. He was so afraid of what she would say next.   
  
"I don't trust him with you, Harry." She looked at him straight on, not even blinking. She was a hero's wife, certainly, a match for some saviour, but it was somebody else, not him. He thought of Neville, who had divorced his wife two years earlier, and remembered him and Ginny at the Yule Ball, the way Neville had glowed with happiness when she was in his arms.   
  
"Why not?" Harry asked, more bothered by this than perhaps he should have been.   
  
"If I'm honest?" Ginny said. "Because he was a Slytherin."   
  
They laughed until they were crying again.   
  
*   
  
Eventually, they all ended up in the living area on the second floor. Ron and Hermione were in the centre of the sofa, Rose dozing with her head in Hermione's lap and Ginny at Ron's side, holding his hand. James sat against the wall, crying in guilty pangs and blaming himself, though of course it had been Hugo's idea. Albus leaned against James and drifted in and out of sleep. Harry was in an armchair across from the sofa with Lily asleep in his lap. Teddy sat on the floor with his back to the armchair, his shoulder resting against Harry's left knee. Nobody looked anybody else in the eye.   
  
Harry fell asleep. He dreamed that he was at Hogwarts, being sorted. There were only two houses, and in one of them was all of his family: his children, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and their children, Hugo grinning over a plate piled with pudding. At the other table there was only Teddy, trying to appear brave as everyone continued to be sorted into the other house. The hat was slipped over Harry's head, dropping down over his eyes. _Teddy_ , he thought, _please put me with Teddy, he's got no one else_.   
  
He woke up as the Sorting Hat was screaming "HUFFLEPUFF!" People were suddenly streaming into the room, a few Harry recognised and many he didn't. Hermione was shrieking. There was a lifeless boy, presented to her: Hugo. He was pale and limp, both of his ankles twisted the wrong way.   
  
"Hugo, darling, Hugo?" Hermione said, everyone else holding their breath as she bent over him.   
  
"He's alive," said a tall man who reminded Harry of Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had been assassinated two days after he took office. "But badly hurt."   
  
"I'm taking him to Saint Mungo's!" Hermione shouted, turning back to make eye contact with Ron, who nodded wildly. Hermione and Hugo disappeared, and Ron grabbed Rose's wrist and was soon gone as well. Ginny looked at Harry from across the room.   
  
"I'm going to get my parents," she said. "Will you and Teddy bring the children home to London?"   
  
For a moment, Harry was too struck by the offer to respond. _You and Teddy_. He nearly melted to nothing under the burning blaze of her generosity.   
  
"Yes, of course," Harry said. Ginny nodded, and she was gone.   
  
Harry turned to the children; they all looked terrified. He had to remind himself that children of their generation weren't accustomed to seeing a dead or dead-ish body at least once a school term.   
  
"He'll be fine," Harry said. "Did you hear them? He's alive, just hurt. Saint Mungo's will fix him up, you'll see. Shall we all go home and get some rest and then visit Hugo in the morning, when he's well?"   
  
The children nodded, clearly dazed, their eyes wide and bloodshot. Harry looked to Teddy, who was standing just behind them, still content to be off to one side, to know his place. He had flour on his cheek from the rolls he'd made to eat with the soup, which hardly anyone had touched.   
  
"Teddy, will you take James?" Harry asked. "I'll take Lily and Albus."   
  
Teddy nodded, and Harry shook the hands of the Aurors who had located Hugo before Apparating back to the house in London. He walked Lily to her bed first, and joined Albus in kissing her goodnight, then tucked Albus into bed with James. They squirmed together onto the same pillow, and Harry couldn't remember them being so quietly close since Albus was six and James was eight.   
  
"I love you both more than anything," he told them, stroking James' face and then Albus'. He knew that after the jarring events of the evening had faded they might never allow such coddling again.   
  
"Can we go to Saint Mungo's first thing tomorrow?" Albus asked, his eyelids already drooping.   
  
"Of course, but we're no good there if we can't keep our eyes open, are we? Get some rest." Harry touched James' cheek once more before turning to leave. It was amazing, how close he had always lived to death and loss for so long, and how he'd almost forgotten what it was like to be grateful for every look and touch and breath of the loved ones the world had allowed him to keep.   
  
He walked back out to the front sitting room where he'd left Teddy wringing his hands. Teddy was staring into space, his shoulders hunched as he sat on an ottoman by the cold fireplace. When Harry entered he hopped up and smoothed down his trousers as if Harry had arrived to interview him for a job. Harry walked to him and put two careful hands on his shoulders. Teddy's eyes were gray like the last heavy traces of a storm, the sadness that came after the bravado of the lightning and thunder.   
  
"Stay with me," Harry said. Teddy shook his head.   
  
"The children –"   
  
"I told Ginny."   
  
Teddy's eyes widened hugely and Harry couldn't stop himself from laughing. It felt good, and wrong. He thought of Hugo in St Mungo's and wondered how true any reassurances he'd given the children really were.   
  
"How – what did she say?" Teddy asked.   
  
"She, well. She didn't physically attack me."   
  
"Really? Well, that's something."   
  
Harry couldn't stand it any longer. He pulled Teddy into his arms and exhaled a weak moan against his shoulder. He didn't smell so clean anymore, but Harry loved him this way, too. He squeezed Teddy until he laughed in protest, the breath choked out of him.   
  
"She was concerned that you were a Slytherin," Harry said, leaning back. Teddy grinned.   
  
"I was angry," he said. "I was eleven years old and I already hated the whole world, even before my gran went mad. Of course I was a Slytherin."   
  
"What would you be if you were sorted now?" Harry asked. He kissed Teddy before he could answer; he didn't really care. He'd never put much stock in the whole sorting business, at least not since he was eleven years old himself.   
  
"Oh, I don't know," Teddy said, speaking into Harry's mouth. "Hufflepuff, probably."   
  
Harry laughed and licked through Teddy's lips again. He wanted to kiss him more than he even wanted sleep, or sex, or food, or anything so basic. It all seemed irrelevant when Teddy's mouth was open over his.   
  
"Will you do something for me?" Harry asked.   
  
"Anything," Teddy said.   
  
Harry took Teddy's hand and led him to one of the guest bedrooms. He wasn't ready yet to sleep with Teddy in what had been he and Ginny's bed for the last seventeen years. He shut the door behind them and pulled off all but his shorts as Teddy watched.   
  
"Should I undress?" Teddy asked. Harry's heart broke at the question.   
  
"If you want to," Harry said, climbing into the bed. Teddy quickly did away with his shirt and trousers, and joined Harry in the bed, undressed just as Harry was, down to his shorts. Harry pulled back the blankets and Teddy settled beneath them, looking confused.   
  
"Please," Harry said. "Please, just." He stopped trying to articulate it and leaned in against Teddy's chest. Teddy's skin was like that of someone who had suffered a fever, clammy and hot, and Harry imagined that his was the same. He put his head against Teddy's shoulder, just in the crook, so that he was breathing onto Teddy's left nipple. Teddy was still, and seemed confused. Harry listened to Teddy's heartbeat and waited. Eventually, Teddy got the idea. He wrapped one arm around Harry's shoulder and pushed his other hand into Harry's hair.   
  
"There, there," Teddy whispered. "You're safe. I've got you."   
  
Harry shut his eyes. He thought of his children sleeping in their beds, and his wife, tending to her mother's melodramatic appraisal of the situation at the hospital, and Ron and Hermione, holding Hugo's hands as the Healers brought him back to life. He thought of Sirius, the look in his face just before he fell through the Veil, and the look on Remus' face when he came to tell Harry that Tonks was pregnant with Teddy. It was all so sloppy, the paths that wizards and witches trod in order to end up grateful for a child whilst mourning a marriage, the kind of disastrously messy business that had landed Harry Potter, the Great, the Saviour, the Boy Who Lived, in bed with another orphan, being stroked to sleep by him the way he had dreamed of in formless fantasies, before he knew anything about the life that would come to him, magic and danger and consequences like nothing he'd ever dared to imagine. Before any of this had been thrust upon him, before he'd learned his destiny over those many tortuous and fantastic years, he had wanted only this: someone to appear and know his heart without trying, someone who would fall to his side and take him into his arms, someone who was just like him, but better and stronger, strong enough to save him.   
  
"In the morning," Harry said, close to sleep. "We'll go to the hospital."   
  
"Of course," Teddy said. He ran his fingers along the line of Harry's jaw. "If you think I should be there?"   
  
"You should," Harry said.   
  
"Well. Alright, but Ginny –"   
  
"She'll have her whole family there by morning," Harry said. "Who will I have but you?"   
  
"Oh, Harry, please. You have everyone, you have so many people who love you."   
  
"All that matters is that you do." Harry hadn't failed to notice that Teddy hadn't said so out loud.   
  
"That's foolish," Teddy said. "You were right, before. I shouldn't – fault you your other loves, your children, God, how immature I was to have such a fit."   
  
"But you love me the way no one else can," Harry said. "Unless of course you don't."   
  
"Harry." Teddy pinched Harry's chin sharply and Harry squinted up at him, groaning at the pain of being pulled out of sleep when he'd come so close to sinking into it. "I love you," Teddy said, and he frowned. "After everything, really. How dare you make me say it out loud."   
  
Harry smiled and tucked his face against Teddy's chest again. Teddy petted him into a deep sleep, and Harry dreamed of the cupboard under the stairs. In his little bed he had thought, furiously: _There is someone else, there is someone else, it's not only me, and I will find that other boy, and I will save him._ But it was a fool's dream. He was wanting, all the time, if he'd ever been truly honest with himself, to be the one who was saved.


End file.
